HomeAlibaba, Tencent Vie for DeepSeek Stake in $20 Billion Valuation Race
Industry sources revealed on April 22nd that both Tencent and Alibaba are looking to join the latest funding round for DeepSeek, a prominent domestic large language model developer. Fueled by this interest from tech giants, DeepSeek's targeted valuation has reportedly jumped from $10 billion just days ago to over $20 billion.
This follows an earlier report on April 18th that DeepSeek was seeking to raise $300 million at a valuation of at least $10 billion. The rapid escalation in its fundraising appeal underscores the market's high premium for top-tier independent AI model companies. On the product front, DeepSeek is anticipated to release its next-generation model, DeepSeek v4, within this month. A core enhancement for this model is the introduction of multimodal processing capabilities, designed to significantly broaden its potential for real-world industry applications.
In parallel, Tencent's in-house model, Hunyuan, has also achieved notable progress. The company is expected to officially launch Hunyuan 3.0 this week. Reports indicate this version is spearheaded by Yao Shunyu, a former core researcher at OpenAI, and may feature a lightweight architecture with roughly 30 billion parameters. The goal is to maintain strong performance while lowering deployment costs and reducing inference latency.
The large model market is currently exhibiting a clear trend of polarization. On one side, leading startups are seeing their valuations skyrocket as capital floods toward elite algorithm teams. On the other side, major tech firms are focusing on achieving an optimal balance of extreme efficiency and compact model size. With DeepSeek adding multimodal features and Hunyuan 3.0 entering the arena as a lightweight contender, the competition among domestic models is evolving. It is no longer just a contest of parameter count but a broader battle encompassing multimodal prowess and the potential for deployment on edge devices. This shift is likely to reshape both the investment landscape and the technical benchmarks within China's AI industry.
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Industry sources revealed on April 22nd that both Tencent and Alibaba are looking to join the latest funding round for DeepSeek, a prominent domestic large language model developer. Fueled by this interest from tech giants, DeepSeek's targeted valuation has reportedly jumped from $10 billion just days ago to over $20 billion.
This follows an earlier report on April 18th that DeepSeek was seeking to raise $300 million at a valuation of at least $10 billion. The rapid escalation in its fundraising appeal underscores the market's high premium for top-tier independent AI model companies. On the product front, DeepSeek is anticipated to release its next-generation model, DeepSeek v4, within this month. A core enhancement for this model is the introduction of multimodal processing capabilities, designed to significantly broaden its potential for real-world industry applications.
In parallel, Tencent's in-house model, Hunyuan, has also achieved notable progress. The company is expected to officially launch Hunyuan 3.0 this week. Reports indicate this version is spearheaded by Yao Shunyu, a former core researcher at OpenAI, and may feature a lightweight architecture with roughly 30 billion parameters. The goal is to maintain strong performance while lowering deployment costs and reducing inference latency.
The large model market is currently exhibiting a clear trend of polarization. On one side, leading startups are seeing their valuations skyrocket as capital floods toward elite algorithm teams. On the other side, major tech firms are focusing on achieving an optimal balance of extreme efficiency and compact model size. With DeepSeek adding multimodal features and Hunyuan 3.0 entering the arena as a lightweight contender, the competition among domestic models is evolving. It is no longer just a contest of parameter count but a broader battle encompassing multimodal prowess and the potential for deployment on edge devices. This shift is likely to reshape both the investment landscape and the technical benchmarks within China's AI industry.
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Recently, the YouTube tech channel Fully Buffered carried out an impressive and hardcore experiment: successfully running Meta's latest Llama 3.2 3B large model on the Pentium 4 641 processor, a chip released in 2006.This test forced modern artificia
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Discover the 2026 best AI voice tools for game devs! XIX.AI's curated list features top-rated, game-changing solutions to save you time and money on voice acting for RPGs and visual novels. Explore free vs paid comparisons, real-world tests, and weekly updated rankings. Find your perfect voice tool today!
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Discover the 2026 best AI spaced repetition tools, curated by XIX.AI. Our top-rated, game-changing picks help medical and law students optimize study schedules for maximum retention. Compare free vs paid options with real-world tests and weekly updated rankings. Unlock your learning edge now.
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2026 Latest Best AI Text to Video Platforms: Top-rated tools for script writing and visual storytelling. Discover powerful, game-changing solutions to transform your text into engaging videos. Compare free vs paid options with our weekly updated rankings and real-world tests. Find your perfect platform to boost creativity and productivity. Explore the curated selection at XIX.AI.
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