CATL to Invest in DeepSeek as Battery Giant Eyes AI Infrastructure

DeepSeek has raised $15 billion in funding, one of China's largest rounds, just days after the US ordered federal agencies to remove its technology citing national security concerns. The timing underscores the divergence between US regulatory action and continued capital availability for Chinese AI companies. The funding suggests investor confidence in DeepSeek despite the US restrictions.

DeepSeek has open-sourced DeepInfer, its proprietary inference framework, making public the technical infrastructure behind its cost-efficient AI model deployment. The move exposes the methods DeepSeek uses to achieve high-margin inference operations at scale. The release signals a shift toward transparency in how the Chinese AI developer optimizes computational efficiency.

DeepSeek is collaborating closely with Huawei to shape the design of future AI chips, with Huawei engineers stationed at DeepSeek's offices to incorporate the AI company's technical requests into chip architecture decisions. The partnership focuses on how models calculate and move data between processors for chips launching next year and beyond. This collaboration represents a significant effort by China to develop frontier AI capabilities independent of Nvidia's technology.

DeepSeek announced Wednesday that it will open-source software tools customized for Huawei's AI chips, marking an escalation in the Chinese AI firm's push to rely on domestic semiconductors for model training and deployment. The move includes a Huawei-compatible version of TileLang, a software framework. This effort reflects broader Chinese industry strategy to reduce dependence on foreign chip technology amid U.S. export restrictions.