China’s DeepSeek said it plans to double its workforce after raising more than $7.4 billion in its first funding round, as the Chinese artificial intelligence startup steps up competition with U.S. rivals OpenAI and Anthropic.
The Hangzhou-based company announced in a statement published on WeChat late on June 25 that it is recruiting for 27 categories of technical positions, including development engineers, data engineers, AI product managers and operations staff, as well as roles in human resources, legal and finance. The company added that all vacancies are open to interns, according to The Wall Street Journal.
“Humanity is currently at the dawn of AGI,” DeepSeek said in the statement. “As technology advances, we are striving to at least double the scale of all departments.”
The recruitment drive follows the completion of DeepSeek’s first external fundraising round, which valued the company at more than $50 billion.
Founder Liang Wenfeng, who held nearly 90% of DeepSeek before the financing, invested about $3 billion in the round, marking the largest individual contribution. Other major investors include Tencent, Contemporary Amperex Technology (CATL), and China’s National Artificial Intelligence Industry Investment Fund.
DeepSeek has rapidly emerged as one of China’s leading AI companies since unveiling a powerful, low-cost artificial intelligence model last year, strengthening Beijing’s ambitions to compete with the United States in the global AI race.
By Sabina Mammadli
