The sudden emergence of DeepSeek as a global leader in artificial intelligence has been one of the surprises of 2025 so far. Just as remarkable is the path the Chinese firm has taken from high finance to high tech in less than ten years.
DeepSeek is not the first Chinese company to successfully pivot from one industry to another, moves often made to reflect Beijing’s policy preferences. In DeepSeek’s case, that meant blossoming from the stem of High-Flyer, a quantitative hedge fund, and moving into large language models — a switch for which it happened to be well suited.
“The central government hates hedge funds, full stop,” says Peter Alexander, founder of Z-Ben Advisors, a Shanghai-based market intelligence firm focused on China’s financial industry. “High-Flyer saw the writing on the wall last February. From a year ago to today, they have put more energy on the AI focus.”
This week, The Wire details High-Flyer’s rise, from its founders’ college graduation to its role as financier of DeepSeek. The company did not respond to requests for comment.
Like many Chinese companies, High-Flyer is a web of interlocking corporate entities. The firm’s founders, Liang Wenfeng, Xu Jin, and Zheng Dawei, directly hold some of these companies; others they own through holding companies. The one constant is Liang, who is majority owner of every entity in the High-Flyer/DeepSeek extended family, though his stakes vary.
Noah Berman is a staff writer for The Wire based in New York. He previously wrote about economics and technology at the Council on Foreign Relations. His work has appeared in the Boston Globe and PBS News. He graduated from Georgetown University.
