{"text":[[{"start":8.45,"text":"DeepSeek is considering raising new funds just one month after closing its first round, as China’s leading AI lab seeks to accelerate expansion of its infrastructure."}],[{"start":20.049999999999997,"text":"The Hangzhou-based start-up completed its first-ever round of financing around the end of May, which raised about $7bn at a valuation of $52bn, including the raised funds, according to three people with knowledge of the matter."}],[{"start":35.3,"text":"DeepSeek this week started preliminary talks with new investors about opening another round that would value the company at about $71bn before the deal, two of the people said."}],[{"start":46.55,"text":"That would represent a 37 per cent jump in valuation, although details of the new round are yet to be finalised."}],[{"start":54.3,"text":"DeepSeek’s unusually swift pace of fundraising stems from expectations of increased capital expenditure to build its own data centre and purchase more AI chips, according to the people."}],[{"start":65.5,"text":"Its push into building AI agents, which can perform tasks autonomously, is leading to much higher demand for computing power."}],[{"start":72.35,"text":"Founder Liang Wenfeng put about $3bn of his own money into the AI lab in the previous round as the largest investor, the people said. Other investors included battery maker CATL, tech groups Tencent, JD.com and NetEase, and venture capital funds including IDG, Monolith and Shixiang."}],[{"start":92.89999999999999,"text":"The state-backed national AI fund, a subsidiary of China Integrated Circuit Industry Investment Fund, the country’s strategic semiconductor investor, also became a minority shareholder of DeepSeek."}],[{"start":105.1,"text":"The proceeds from the first round are being used to beef up DeepSeek’s infrastructure and hire more AI researchers, as competition to build the best models intensifies in China and beyond."}],[{"start":116.44999999999999,"text":"DeepSeek plans to double the size of many of its core teams, joining a fierce talent war as it seeks to commercialise its frontier research. The company said last month it had launched a recruitment drive to “expand every department”."}],[{"start":131.7,"text":"DeepSeek emerged as a leader in China’s AI research last year after the release of its open-source R1 reasoning model, which demonstrated performance comparable to leading western systems but was trained using more efficient methods."}],[{"start":145.25,"text":"Competition among Chinese AI groups has increased in recent months, with rivals including Zhipu AI and Moonshot AI releasing improved open-source models that have been rapidly adopted by developers."}],[{"start":157.8,"text":"The Chinese labs are also seeking to catch up with global leaders such as Anthropic and OpenAI, which have far more resources in terms of computing power and capital."}],[{"start":167.45000000000002,"text":"DeepSeek did not immediately respond to a request for comment."}],[{"start":179,"text":""}]],"url":"https://audio.ftcn.net.cn/album/a_1784029529_6690.mp3"}