Meet Luo Fuli, the 29-year-old ‘AI prodigy’ leading DeepSeek’s global rise

DeepSeek, a Chinese AI chatbot, is shaking up the tech world—outperforming major AI models like ChatGPT, Gemini, and Claude AI. It has skyrocketed to the top of the Apple App Store, surpassing ChatGPT and even impacting the US stock market.

One of the key minds behind DeepSeek’s breakthrough is Luo Fuli, a 29-year-old AI researcher praised as an "AI prodigy" in China. Her expertise in natural language processing (NLP) played a major role in developing DeepSeek-V2, a model that rivals some of the world's best AI systems.

Luo Fuli’s Journey: From Student to AI Innovator

Luo’s path to AI stardom started at Beijing Normal University, where she initially struggled with computer science before finding her stride. She later earned a spot at Peking University’s Institute of Computational Linguistics, where she made waves in 2019 by publishing eight research papers at the prestigious ACL conference—a feat that caught the attention of top tech companies.

Her talent led her to Alibaba’s DAMO Academy, where she helped develop VECO, a multilingual AI model, and contributed to the open-source AliceMind project.

In 2022, she joined DeepSeek, where her NLP expertise helped shape DeepSeek-V2, an AI model now competing head-to-head with ChatGPT. Her exceptional skills didn’t go unnoticed—soon after, Lei Jun, the founder of Xiaomi, reportedly offered her a massive 10 million yuan annual package to join his company, according to the South China Morning Post.

DeepSeek: China’s Answer to Global AI Giants

Founded in 2023 by Liang Wenfeng in Hangzhou, DeepSeek has gained international recognition for developing powerful AI models at a fraction of the cost of its competitors.

Its latest model, DeepSeek-V3, rivals top AI systems like Llama 3.1, Qwen 2.5, GPT-4o, and Claude 3.5 Sonnet. Meanwhile, its R1 model has outperformed OpenAI’s o1-mini model in multiple benchmarks. Independent research suggests DeepSeek’s technology even outclasses AI models from Google, Meta, and Anthropic.

Since its official launch last week, the DeepSeek app has taken the No. 1 spot on the US App Store, surpassing ChatGPT as the most downloaded free app. Its rapid rise has also had a financial impact—on Monday, shares of AI-driven companies like Nvidia, Microsoft, and Meta saw a dip, signaling how DeepSeek is changing the AI landscape.

With rising stars like Luo Fuli leading its innovation, DeepSeek is proving that China is a serious contender in the AI race.