Those who have had professional dealings with DeepSeek say he is obsessed with human-like artificial general intelligence ( AGI) and the impact it could have on the world. In his pursuit of it, DeepSeek’s founder is upending ideas about technological progress both in the West and China.

Liang Wenfeng, the 40-year-old founder of DeepSeek, trained as an engineer and then launched a hedge fund. Now he’s enjoying sudden success with his AI chatbot.

The Chinese artificial intelligence app DeepSeek became the most downloaded free app in the U.S. on Apple’s app store and its low cost claims are putting the pressure on major American tech companies.