China’s fast-rising artificial intelligence lab DeepSeek is reportedly nearing a valuation of around $45 billion as fundraising discussions accelerate, with the country’s most powerful state semiconductor investment fund preparing to lead the round, according to reporting attributed to the Financial Times. The deal would mark one of the largest early-stage AI valuations in China’s private tech sector and signal deepening state involvement in frontier artificial intelligence development.
The China Integrated Circuit Industry Investment Fund, widely known as the “Big Fund,” is in talks to anchor the financing round, alongside participation from major Chinese technology companies including Tencent. If completed at the proposed valuation, the investment would represent a dramatic jump from earlier discussions that valued DeepSeek at roughly $20 billion just weeks ago, reflecting intense investor competition to back one of China’s most prominent AI developers.
DeepSeek gained global attention in early 2025 after releasing its R1 large language model, an open-source system it claimed could match leading US-developed models while using significantly less computing power. The company has since become a symbol of China’s ambition to narrow the AI gap with American firms such as OpenAI, while operating in a market shaped by tightening US export controls on advanced semiconductor technology.
The potential backing from the Big Fund carries strategic weight far beyond financial investment. The state-backed vehicle, which has already deployed tens of billions of dollars into China’s semiconductor sector, has previously supported major chipmakers such as Semiconductor Manufacturing International Corporation and Yangtze Memory Technologies. Its involvement in DeepSeek would strengthen Beijing’s efforts to build an integrated domestic AI ecosystem spanning chips, models, and software.
According to the Financial Times report, DeepSeek founder Liang Wenfeng, who retains majority control of the company through personal and affiliated holdings, may also participate in the new funding round. The company’s rapid valuation growth has intensified speculation that it could raise additional capital to expand computing capacity and support long-term model training ambitions, rather than focusing on immediate commercialisation.
The fundraising comes amid broader geopolitical competition over artificial intelligence infrastructure. China is increasingly reliant on coordination between chipmakers and AI developers to offset restrictions on advanced US technology exports. Domestic alternatives, including Huawei’s Ascend chips, are being integrated into AI systems, although industry analysts note that China still lags the United States in both scale and semiconductor capability.
DeepSeek’s rise has also drawn attention from global tech leaders. Nvidia chief executive Jensen Huang has warned that closer alignment between Chinese AI models and domestic chip ecosystems could eventually challenge US technological dominance if AI systems worldwide become optimised for non-American hardware platforms.
Despite its rapid ascent, DeepSeek remains focused primarily on developing frontier AI models rather than commercial applications such as enterprise services or consumer-facing chatbots. Industry observers cited in the Financial Times report note that while competitors in China are beginning to scale revenues, DeepSeek continues to position itself as a research-driven lab prioritising model capability over immediate monetisation.
