Deepseek 'clearly not interested' in scaling up — 160-person team focused on developing new models

China-based AI company Deepseek is reportedly focusing on development and research, instead of chasing revenue, unlike many of its western AI rivals like OpenAI, Google and Anthropic. According to the Financial Times, the Hangzhou-based company is focused on developing two new models, R2 and V4, with the intention to hit their goal of achieving Artificial General Intelligence (AGI).

Deepseek garnered significant attention in January 2025, triggering a stock market shakeup that resulted in Nvidia losing $589 billion in market cap in a single day, following the launch of Deepseek R1.

Despite the newfound attention, the billionaire founder and CEO of Deepseek, Liang Wenfeng, is allegedly taking a different approach when compared to the company's western competitors.

Speaking to the Financial Times, sources close to Deepseek said that there is "little intention to capitalize on Deepseek's sudden fame to commercialize its technology in the near term". Instead, the company is instead focusing on "model development" and developing towards AGI.

Deepseek's revenues are also reported to be covering ongoing costs, likely thanks to interest garnered thanks to the release of the Deepseek R1 model in January.

Wenfeng is also notoriously difficult to contact, with the Deepseek CEO outright declining interest in any further investment from "venture and state-backed funds", the report continues.

But, Wenfeng clearly has enough resources to fund further development. He's also the founder of one of China's leading hedge-funds, High Flyer. According to sources speaking to the Financial Times, he purchased 10,000 Nvidia H800 GPUs, and 10,000 A100s. Though, the chips were purchased before they were banned for sale in China. Deepseek has already incurred over $1.6 billion in hardware costs, and has total fleet of over 50,000 Nvidia GPUs.

However, the company might find it difficult to access more advanced Nvidia chips in the future, and could "consider future partnerships" to resolve the issue. In late February, a Singapore-based smuggling ring was busted for alleged illegal re-export of high-performance GPUs, destined for Deepseek, bypassing trade restrictions.

It's also alleged that if Deepseek's future demand exceeds their current data center capacity, that the company will rely on "third-party providers", instead of procuring more for themselves. The Chinese government has also thrown support behind Deepseek, with the company gaining access to state-funded datacenters.

Deepseek has also invested over $500 million into its technology, and will remain self-funded. "They clearly are not interested in scaling up right now. It's a rare situation where the founder is wealthy and committed enough to keep it lean in a Navy Seal-style for his pursuit of AGI", one industry insider told the Financial Times.

Deepseek's 160 employees are dedicated to development

Deepseek has "about 160" employees, which is significantly fewer than OpenAI's gargantuan headcount of around 2000 employees (as of December 2024), according to sources speaking to the Financial Times. This makes the company much leaner than many of its rivals.

The team is focused on development of the next-generation R2 and V4 models, which are currently slated for release in May. However development "may be accelerated to keep its momentum going" according to Financial Times sources.

With Deepseek's next move just a short few months away, another Chinese AI company named Manus AI, which is developing autonomous AI agents, has enjoyed heightened interest.

But, it has yet to come within spitting distance of the impact that Deepseek has had on the AI industry. Whether Deepseek's next release can trigger another shock moment for stock markets is also yet to be seen, as the company hones in its focuses on rapid development of advanced AI technologies.