The man who founded DeepSeek, the artificial intelligence company that rattled the U.S. stock market, is 40-year-old Liang Wenfeng, a former hedge fund manager who said he shifted into tech to close the gap between China and the U.S. in the AI industry.

DeepSeek, a Chinese AI lab, has Silicon Valley reeling with its R1 reasoning model, which it claims uses far less computing power than those of American

The low-profile 40-year-old is winning widespread praise for keeping artificial intelligence costs affordable and giving Western firms and tech entrepreneurs a run for their money.

After studying electronics and communication engineering at Zhejiang University, Liang Wenfeng graduated in 2010 with a master's in information and communication engineering.

DeepSeek, an AI platform founded by Liang Wenfeng, surpasses ChatGPT as the most downloaded free app in the U.S., impacting major technology stocks. F