DeepSeek to ‘double size of all departments’ as it competes with AI rivals

The hiring push comes amid additional plans to raise significant funds of roughly $7.4bn.

Chinese AI company DeepSeek will reportedly double the size of all of its departments amid a push to compete with domestic rivals and global leaders in the artificial intelligence space. 

DeepSeek announced the hiring plans for technical and engineering professionals on messaging platform WeChat, noting that the company is specifically looking to employ additional data engineers, development engineers and AI cross-disciplinary technical talent.

In mid-June, it was reported that DeepSeek is in the process of raising $7.4bn, which would bring the platform to a post-money valuation of more than $50bn. According to Bloomberg, the organisation is in the final stages of the fundraising, in what will be one of China’s largest start-up fundraising efforts. 

The round comes with an odd caveat however, in that it apparently requires investors to put their funds into a limited partnership managed by DeepSeek founder and CEO Liang Wenfeng rather than the company itself. Investors’ funds are also subject to a five-year lock up period and they will not have voting rights.

It is believed that among the investors are WeChat creator Tencent and battery manufacturer Contemporary Amperex. Tencent is also reported to have proposed taking a 20pc stake in the company.

DeepSeek’s strategy comes amid efforts to compete with rivals operating in the AI field. In early June, OpenAI revealed future plans to file as an IPO, with projections suggesting that this could potentially value the ChatGPT maker at up to $1trn, one of the largest listings in history. 

This announcement came just days after rival Anthropic announced a similar plan to go public. Meanwhile, domestically, DeepSeek faces competition from organisations such as Alibaba Group Holding and MiniMax Group, which have introduced their own competitive services.

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