OREANDA-NEWS   The founder of the Chinese AI startup DeepSeek, Liang Wenfeng, denied potential investors entry into the company's capital, The Wall Street Journal writes, citing informed sources.

Liang Wenfeng told them that he wanted to preserve the spirit of the scientific project in the company, and told the partners that he was in no hurry to attract investments, fearing influence on its decisions.

In addition, he is cautious about government-related investors, as he believes that due to ties with Beijing, it will be more difficult to implement DeepSeek's AI models on a global scale. The US authorities are considering the possibility of banning the use of the company's developments on government devices. At the same time, the state-owned bank Bank of China offered DeepSeek a low-interest loan, sources familiar with the negotiations say.

According to WSJ sources, in recent weeks Liang Wenfeng has discussed potential cooperation with top managers of Chinese technology companies, including Tencent and Alibaba.

In January, DeepSeek released the R1 model, which is comparable to the developments of the American OpenAI, but requires much less hardware resources. The new model is scheduled to be released in April, sources close to the company say.

At the same time, Liang Wenfeng does not want to charge for using DeepSeek's main AI models, according to sources. These models are now free.