Chinese artificial intelligence firm DeepSeek raked in $15 billion in a fresh fundraising round as it looks to challenge US-based labs like OpenAI and Anthropic, according to a report.
The Hangzhou, China-based firm – one of several open-source contenders that have lured users with ultra-cheap, high-performance AI models – twice raised its fundraising target due to steep demand from investors, Bloomberg reported Thursday, citing people familiar with the matter.
Investors in DeepSeek’s latest round included Chinese tech giant Tencent and battery maker Contemporary Amperex Technology, the report said.
DeepSeek is reportedly preparing to go public in Shanghai the near future.
DeepSeek sparked a $1 trillion market meltdown in January 2025 with the release of an open-source model with capabilities rivaling those of US frontier labs like OpenAI and Anthropic.
Other Chinese startups such as Moonshot and Z.AI have since released their own open-source models, raising concerns that China is catching up to the US in the race to build advanced AI.
As The Post reported, DeepSeek’s data practices – such as storing data on servers based in China – posed many of the same national security concerns that ultimately led Congress to ban TikTok.
Earlier this week, the Department of Homeland Security ordered federal civilian agencies to remove DeepSeek’s models from their systems.
DHS said they “present multiple threat vectors” and noted that any government use of them “may result in the transfer of sensitive data to the [People’s Republic of China] if used by US government employees or vendors.”
The Commerce Department, the US Navy and New York state have all enacted similar crackdowns on use of DeepSeek’s models.
Meanwhile, both OpenAI and Anthropic have openly accused DeepSeek of using a technique called “distillation,” in which an advanced AI model is used to train a less capable one without permission and at a fraction of the cost and time, to build its products.
In April, the White House’s Office of Science and Technology published a memo accusing “foreign entities, principally based in China” of engaging in “deliberate, industrial-scale” theft campaigns.