John Moolenaar (R-MI) and Ranking Member Raja Krishnamoorthi (D-IL)
DEEPSEEK’S OWNERSHIP STRUCTURE
DeepSeek operates within a sophisticated ownership structure where founder Liang Wenfeng maintains effective control despite formal separation.1 While officially owned 99% by Ningbo Cheng’en Enterprise Management Consulting Partnership (LP) (Ningbo Cheng’en), Deepseek is controlled by Liang through his majority stake in Ningbo Chen’en and other affiliated companies.2 DeepSeek’s close ties to High-Flyer Quant, also founded by Liang, are evidenced by substantial initial funding ($420 million) and shared access to the powerful Firefly supercomputing infrastructure with 10,000 A100 GPUs.3 These ties are shown in Appendix A.
Beyond this corporate arrangement, DeepSeek’s connections to PRC state interests are significant. The company operates within the state-subsidized “Hangzhou Chengxi Science and Technology Innovation Corridor,” a government initiative explicitly guided by “Xi Jinping Thought,” the guiding ideology of the CCP, that aims to create China’s answer to Silicon Valley.4 Liang studied under Xiang Zhiyu, whose research includes military applications like drone swarms and battlefield systems.5
Through legally distinct entities, DeepSeek and High-Flyer Quant function as an integrated ecosystem under Liang’s control, with ties to state-linked hardware distributors and the strategic Zhejiang Lab—described by China’s Ministry of Science and Technology as the “core soul” of building “national strategic scientific and technological capabilities.”6 These connections, along with evidence of data transmission to Chinese servers and censorship of politically sensitive topics, have prompted multiple countries to impose restrictions on the app over security concerns.7
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