DeepSeek Nears $45bn Round as State Fund Leads

Financial Times reporting, cited in The Next Web, says the China Integrated Circuit Industry Investment Fund, known as the state "Big Fund," is in talks to lead DeepSeek's first external funding round at an approximate $45bn valuation. The Next Web, referring to the FT scoop, reports that the deal contrasts with earlier mid-April discussions that envisaged a $300m raise at a $10bn valuation with interest from Alibaba and Tencent. The Next Web also reports that DeepSeek was founded in July 2023 by Liang Wenfeng and was funded from the balance sheet of High-Flyer Capital Management until April 2026.

State-backed investment in AI-facing model labs represents a shift in capital flows away from a sole focus on silicon. Industry-pattern observations note that direct funding of model labs can be an alternative route where access to leading-edge GPUs is constrained; public coverage frames the Big Fund move as an extension of its earlier semiconductor policy. For practitioners, that pattern can accelerate resource allocation to software, data, and systems engineering that reduce dependence on the most advanced GPUs.

Reporting places this transaction within Beijing's multi-year push for semiconductor self-sufficiency, which The Next Web says has involved successive phases of the Big Fund deploying more than $50bn into chip design, fabrication, packaging, and tooling. The Next Web frames a direct lead investment in a frontier-AI lab as a larger extension of the fund's mandate than past investments. Industry observers have debated whether constrained hardware access encourages heavier domestic investment in model capabilities; the reporting situates DeepSeek's round inside that debate.

For practitioners: monitor three indicators that industry reporting signals as consequential:

• •whether the round closes at or near the $45bn figure reported by the FT and The Next Web, as that would recalibrate private-market comps in China's AI sector;
• •disclosure of investor composition beyond the Big Fund, which would show whether big domestic tech groups like Alibaba or Tencent participate; and
• •public technical disclosures from DeepSeek, such as model papers or benchmarks, which would clarify whether capital flows are matched by frontier model development.