Elusive DeepSeek founder spotted in public for first time since company upended AI in the West

The elusive founder of disruptive Chinese AI company DeepSeek has been spotted attending a Beijing conference, one week after snubbing a global AI summit in Paris.

Liang Wenfeng was seen publicly for the first time since the company's AI model upended the tech industry.

Up until DeepSeek's unveiling, the US was thought to hold the global monopoly on artificial intelligence, with every top 10 AI company in the world being based in the States.

But when DeepSeek revealed a powerful model that was significantly cheaper to run than OpenAI's ChatGPT, it threw that monopoly into question.

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The share prices of leading AI chipmaker Nvidia plummeted, as did those of Meta Platforms, Microsoft, and Alphabet.

Despite causing chaos in the West, however, Mr Wengfeng didn't attend a global summit on AI in Paris last week.

OpenAI chief executive Sam Altman was in the French capital for the conference and told Sky News he would like to "work with China" - although he doesn't know if the US government would let him do that.

"Should we try as hard as we absolutely can [to work with them]? Yes," he said.

Mr Wengfeng was seen at a rare meeting held by President Xi Jinping on Monday with some of the biggest names in China's technology sector.

During the meeting, the president urged Chinese tech leaders to "show their talent" and be confident in the power of China's model and market.

One analyst said the meeting was a reflection of the Chinese government's concern that it is lagging behind the US when it comes to technology.

"It's a tacit acknowledgement that the Chinese government needs private-sector firms for its tech rivalry with the United States," said Christopher Beddor, deputy China research director at Gavekal Dragonomics in Hong Kong.

"The government has no choice but to support them if it wants to compete with the United States."