DeepSeek founder Liang Wenfeng skips Paris AI summit as China champions its global role

China’s academics tout the country’s contribution to global AI development, while its hottest start-up avoids the limelight

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Heads of state and other dignitaries pose for a photo during the Artificial Intelligence Action Summit at the Grand Palais in Paris on Tuesday. Photo: EPA-EFE

Published: 5:00pm, 12 Feb 2025

DeepSeek’s founder Liang Wenfeng skipped the two-day Artificial Intelligence Action Summit in Paris despite being invited to attend, as top Chinese experts in the field trumpeted the country’s role in the global AI industry.

China’s AI progress, as demonstrated by advances such as DeepSeek’s open-source models, contributed to the global technology community and drove wider adoption, the country’s academics told the conference, which took place on Monday and Tuesday.

Since US start-up OpenAI released ChatGPT and ushered in a new AI era, the field has been developing quickly. DeepSeek showed the world a means to build AI systems at a low cost, said Andrew Yao Chi-chih, a computer scientist and Turing Award winner from Beijing’s Tsinghua University, at a side event.

“Since [DeepSeek’s AI models] are open source, they’ll be able to benefit the global AI community by having all of us advance the technology together,” Yao said.

DeepSeek founder Liang Wenfeng did not attend the Paris AI Action Summit earlier this week. Photo: Weibo

DeepSeek’s breakthrough has sparked a rush among local companies from advanced manufacturing sectors to internet services to adopt the start-up’s low-cost, high-performance AI models. Personal computer giant Lenovo Group, Shenzhen-based robotics firm UBTech and electric vehicle maker Geely were among the first to integrate DeepSeek’s models into their products in recent weeks.

Despite its popularity, the Hangzhou-based start-up and Liang have stayed mum about their next moves, declining media requests for interviews.