DeepSeek reportedly completes about 100 billion yuan financing, with CATL and Tencent participating
According to Bloomberg, DeepSeek raised about 100 billion yuan (about $15 billion) in its latest funding round, setting the record for the largest financing in China's AI industry, with CATL and Tencent among the largest investors in this round. People familiar with the matter said that during its discussions with investors, DeepSeek raised its financing target at least twice, from an initial 50 billion yuan to 80 billion yuan, and ultimately to 100 billion yuan. Bloomberg said the funds will be used to advance the construction of AI data centers, develop more open-source models for the Chinese and overseas markets, and provide a funding base for DeepSeek's preparations for an IPO; Reuters previously reported that it had hired CITIC Securities to prepare for an IPO on the Shanghai Stock Exchange's STAR Market.
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The financing target was raised twice from 50 billion yuan to 100 billion yuan, which readers can use to observe the pace of funding and computing power investment of China's leading AI companies.
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100 Billion! DeepSeek Reportedly Secures China's Largest AI Financing
Zhidongxi Download the app for exclusive early access October 22, 2026, 12:30:14 From Beijing
Zhidongxi, October 22 — Just now, according to Bloomberg, DeepSeek has raised approximately 100 billion yuan (about $15 billion) in its latest funding round, setting a record for the largest financing in China's AI industry, with CATL and Tencent among the largest investors in this round.
According to people familiar with the matter, DeepSeek raised its funding target at least twice while engaging with investors, starting with an initial target of 50 billion yuan, then raising it to 80 billion yuan, and ultimately reaching 100 billion yuan. The people familiar with the matter requested anonymity because the details have not yet been made public.
Bloomberg reported that DeepSeek has begun increasing investment to advance AI data center infrastructure construction and develop more open-source models for the Chinese and overseas markets.
This funding round will provide the financial foundation for DeepSeek's preparations for an IPO. DeepSeek is also using it to narrow the funding gap with leading U.S. AI labs such as OpenAI and Anthropic. On September 9, Reuters reported that DeepSeek had hired CITIC Securities to prepare for an IPO on the Shanghai Stock Exchange's STAR Market.
According to Bloomberg, Moonshot AI is advancing an IPO in Hong Kong in the first quarter of 2027. DeepSeek's listing could become an important milestone in China's capital markets.
Over the past period, DeepSeek has continued to release high-performance, low-cost models, attracting attention from developers at home and abroad and winning customers in overseas markets such as the United States.
On October 17, DeepSeek released and open-sourced DeepSeek-V4.1-Flash-1017. In the DeepSWE v1.1 software engineering capability test, it scored higher than models such as GPT-6 Astra, GPT-6.1 Sol, and Claude Opus 5, while the average cost per individual task dropped by about 60% compared with the previous version.
On October 20, DeepSeek also open-sourced its internally used large-scale cloud service inference framework DeepInfer and the production-grade token codec component deepseek-recipe, and published a detailed technical report introducing the overall architecture and key implementations of the DeepSeek V4.1 Flash inference system.
DeepSeek continues to advance the openness of models, frameworks, and tools, embarking on a development path different from the closed-source commercialization route of some leading overseas AI labs.
With DeepSeek securing large-scale financing, the funding and computing power investment of China's leading AI companies are entering a new stage. Whether DeepSeek can rely on this funding round to continue expanding its advantages in model performance, infrastructure, and overseas commercialization remains to be verified by its subsequent product and IPO progress.
Sources: Bloomberg, Reuters
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