Tencent joins Alibaba in pursuit of DeepSeek stake at $20 billion-plus valuation
Tencent and Alibaba are considering investing in DeepSeek, a Chinese AI startup, at a valuation exceeding $20 billion. DeepSeek is seeking external funding to tackle AI scaling challenges and rising costs.
Chinese tech giants Tencent and Alibaba are eyeing stakes in DeepSeek, a Chinese AI startup. DeepSeek is targeting a valuation exceeding $20 billion as it launches its debut fundraising round. The company originally set out to raise at least $300 million, but the amount has surged to twice its original target of roughly $10 billion due to strong investor demand. DeepSeek built its reputation on independence from external capital, but is now seeking funding to tackle AI scaling challenges and rising costs. The company's spending has shifted from one-off training to ongoing inference, infrastructure, and product integration, which are difficult to sustain without external capital. DeepSeek's architecture is built on NVIDIA PTX, but U.S. export restrictions on NVIDIA chips to China may require the company to transition to domestic alternatives.
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