DeepSeek founder and chief executive Liang Wenfeng received a hero’s welcome during his hometown visit for the Lunar New Year holiday, according to local media and social-media posts, as the Chinese start-up remains under the spotlight for its impact on the artificial intelligence (AI) industry.
Liang, 40, on Tuesday returned to Mililing village in Zhanjiang, a port city in southern Guangdong province, where a red banner was raised hailing the low-profile tech entrepreneur as “hometown pride” for bringing honour to the local community, according to social-media posts. His visit on Lunar New Year’s Eve marks the day when Chinese families traditionally hold reunions during this national public holiday.
It also raised the profile of Liang’s hometown, which has turned into a tourist attraction based on its DeepSeek connection, amid an influx of domestic visitors to the remote village, according to a report by Yangcheng Evening News, a state-backed publication based in Guangzhou, capital of Guangdong.
The heightened domestic and international attention given to DeepSeek and its founder reflects the AI community’s admiration for the firm’s low-cost development of world-class models – which either surpassed or matched the performance of rival products across a range of industry benchmark tests – in spite of tightened US restrictions on China’s access to advanced semiconductors and related technologies.
