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I think the way to parse the current title "DeepSeek pause fundraise after comments on compute gap to US leaked (transcript) [pdf]" is that there was a leak tha

I think the way to parse the current title "DeepSeek pause fundraise after comments on compute gap to US leaked (transcript) [pdf]" is that there was a leak that DeepSeek will pause fundraising because they perceive there is a compute gap with the US. I am also guessing that the majority of the people who read this title will think that DeepSeek is pausing this fundraising because some comments they made about the compute gap were leaked. That is not the case.

solarkraft 2mo ago
Thank you! That is indeed how I read it.
culi 2mo ago
Maybe: "Leaked Deepseek transcripts reveal plan to pause fundraising due to compute gap" I don't know what "compute gap" means in this context though and it's not clear that that's why they plan to pause fundraising or if the title is conflating.
- topspin 2mo ago
  > if the title is conflating The title is certainly a great conflation. Any seeker of capital would want to regroup after an unfiltered leak of this magnitude, if for no other reason than to secure the forum from future leaks. The comments about the unlikelihood of enormous future profits were at least as consequential with regard to capital investment as anything else that was said.
- AnnikaL 2mo ago
  Yeah, wouldn't it makes sense to increase fundraising, so as to acquire more compute to close the gap?
  - epolanski 2mo ago
    I guess they likely can't right now due to no hardware available, either cause of bans or already all booked.
    - aae42 2mo ago
      I gather this is the whole point of the original article. It seems to have been pulled, so I can't confirm. At what point do the AI companies start building their own hardware, I wonder.
      - hirako2000 2mo ago
        Other companies are investing and hardware design and manufacturing, so they won't duplicate the effort given the national drive it would be a waste.
- GolfPopper 2mo ago
  Perhaps it's akin to a mineshaft gap?
- choonway 2mo ago
  yep. the word they use is probably 克制 or self-restraint. no need to raise so much cash if you can't use it. in his article he talks about the negative aspects of getting everything you want. (all the money, brightest minds, biggest share in AI) etc. he says that these are the things that will cause a company to fail.
  - andai 2mo ago
    I shouldn't win too hard, because then I'll lose?
    - muvlon 2mo ago
      Yes. Once you're in such a comfortable position that you'll keep making lots of cash regardless of whether you do well or not, there is little incentive to make good decisions, let alone take risks. This is known as the "curse of Oil" and is also what Intel's decline is attributed to.
      - selimthegrim 2mo ago
        Catching up without overtaking
    - brookst 2mo ago
      Yep. Classic “giant series A, company gets amazing office space” vibes.
    - Psyladine 2mo ago
      Problem of the local maxim, extreme dependency is the same as evolutionary pressure to specialize for it, eventually the process owns you.
      - andai 2mo ago
        Interesting, could you elaborate please? What does dependency mean in this context? That you become over specialized for a niche?
oliculipolicula 2mo ago
I wanted to post this which explains the wording but I thought the transcript was more interesting. Sorry. Maybe mods can help me to put what follows as auxiliary link. I don't know how. https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2026-07-25/deepseek-said-to-tell-backers-of-funding-pause-after-viral-posts https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2026-07-25/deepseek-... Update: Less-paywalled word-for-word copy it seems at https://fortune.com/2026/07/25/deepseek-liang-wenfeng-backers-fundraising-pause-viral-posts-investors/ https://fortune.com/2026/07/25/deepseek-liang-wenfeng-backer... https://archive.ph/zpIrG https://archive.ph/zpIrG
- SyneRyder 2mo ago
  Most of that is paywalled, but this one paragraph in the Bloomberg article suggests it might be more to do with investors leaking information: "The suspension stemmed in part from Liang’s frustration over online reports about his comments to investors during his first financing deal" The part of the transcript I'd seen floating around online was this part from around 1 hour 26 min: "With the largest models available today, we simply cannot afford to train them. Even if we spent all five hundred billion yuan, we still wouldn't be able to do so. Even if we could accumulate the resources, we wouldn't have the means to utilize them. The current largest model requires approximately 800 billion activations; domestically, we are still at a scale of several dozen billion activations, and even the largest domestic model may only require several dozen billion activations—a difference of an order of magnitude. To train a model of the same size as an AI system, we would need around 50,000 GB300 GPUs or Huawei 950 GPUs, totaling two hundred thousand cards. This is merely training; research has not yet been considered. Therefore, the biggest gap between us and the United States lies in resources."
  - carterschonwald 2mo ago
    amusingly ive been working on ultra sparse llm inference/ training/ model design because nature loaths a dense graph/matrix and cause i think it shoukd be possible. i actually stood up a 20-25 percent faster than sota causal fast attention kernel yesterday, will be standing up cuda/metal/armv8 kernels too and thats gonna be fun. i genuinely think these models should be like 0.1 percent sparse for same capabilities we associate with them today, but theres no sane way to do that with extent tools. i built the right core tech for that in 2014 when there wasnt a market, but now there is and the experimentation velocity is wild. amusingly llms really have a hard time using my simple apis because its not in distribution array programs. but i literally stood up cpu custom memory format and micro kernel for dense causal attention in less than 24-36 hours and outperforms the equivalent fused ggml/llama cpp fast oath by like 20-25 percent
ansk 2mo ago
I skimmed the doc and my impression is that your second listed interpretation -- DeepSeek is pausing investment because of a leak -- is the more correct one. There's quite a bit of confidential information in the doc about the company and how it's positioning itself going forward to compete with US labs. I'd imagine they're not happy at all with this being leaked and are withholding investment as a punitive measure. Not to mention the other interpretation seems illogical -- why would you pause fundraising if your perception was that you lacked resources compared to your competitors?
- tedggh 2mo ago
  Maybe because if you need more money to catch up with your competitors than anticipated then your ROIC is lower and your valuation changes?
- asdf88990 2mo ago
  Because money isn’t free and if you know there is a chokehold in supply, why raise money ar current valuation when things are getting better by the day?
- z0ltan 2mo ago
  [dead]
crazylogger 2mo ago
All the Chinese reporting I see point to the second (majority) interpretation. Liang being furious about his private investor talk leaked online is the news here. e.g. https://x.com/_FORAB/status/2081034500101017616?s=20 https://x.com/_FORAB/status/2081034500101017616?s=20
- credit_guy 2mo ago
  Those could be subsequent developments, but that's not what the linked transcript was about. The transcript was a discussion of the DeepSeek founder (Liang Wenfeng) with investors, and he does not mention any leaks, or any frustration. He simply says that he is constrained by the supply of cards, and he has no problem of getting funding, but has no reason to raise further funding because he can't transform the cash into cards. > There is certainly no shortage of funds or resources --- in fact, all these are readily available [...] > Within our financial capacity, it's undoubtedly true that the more cards are always better. Our current strategy is to purchase as many cards as possible at a reasonable price --- exactly how many we can afford after using this funding round. The spending pace isn't predetermined; we'll buy whatever is available as long as prices remain competitive. In fact, I'd consider that a positive outcome if we spend the entire amount within six months. [...] > In reality, spending such a large sum is no easy task: you can't obtain enough cards, they're hard to come by [...] > Therefore, our only concern is whether we can obtain enough cards. If converting all funds into cards were feasible, we would undoubtedly do so without hesitation and are even willing to pay a premium for this benefit --- it's simply to cost effective. Even after paying the premium, however, achieving this goal remains challenging.
  - try-working 2mo ago
    he's pausing because of the leak. the transcript content has nothing to do with it.

solarkraft 2mo ago

Thank you! That is indeed how I read it.

culi 2mo ago

Maybe: "Leaked Deepseek transcripts reveal plan to pause fundraising due to compute gap" I don't know what "compute gap" means in this context though and it's not clear that that's why they plan to pause fundraising or if the title is conflating.

topspin 2mo ago
> if the title is conflating The title is certainly a great conflation. Any seeker of capital would want to regroup after an unfiltered leak of this magnitude, if for no other reason than to secure the forum from future leaks. The comments about the unlikelihood of enormous future profits were at least as consequential with regard to capital investment as anything else that was said.
AnnikaL 2mo ago
Yeah, wouldn't it makes sense to increase fundraising, so as to acquire more compute to close the gap?
- epolanski 2mo ago
  I guess they likely can't right now due to no hardware available, either cause of bans or already all booked.
  - aae42 2mo ago
    I gather this is the whole point of the original article. It seems to have been pulled, so I can't confirm. At what point do the AI companies start building their own hardware, I wonder.
    - hirako2000 2mo ago
      Other companies are investing and hardware design and manufacturing, so they won't duplicate the effort given the national drive it would be a waste.
GolfPopper 2mo ago
Perhaps it's akin to a mineshaft gap?
choonway 2mo ago
yep. the word they use is probably 克制 or self-restraint. no need to raise so much cash if you can't use it. in his article he talks about the negative aspects of getting everything you want. (all the money, brightest minds, biggest share in AI) etc. he says that these are the things that will cause a company to fail.
- andai 2mo ago
  I shouldn't win too hard, because then I'll lose?
  - muvlon 2mo ago
    Yes. Once you're in such a comfortable position that you'll keep making lots of cash regardless of whether you do well or not, there is little incentive to make good decisions, let alone take risks. This is known as the "curse of Oil" and is also what Intel's decline is attributed to.
    - selimthegrim 2mo ago
      Catching up without overtaking
  - brookst 2mo ago
    Yep. Classic “giant series A, company gets amazing office space” vibes.
  - Psyladine 2mo ago
    Problem of the local maxim, extreme dependency is the same as evolutionary pressure to specialize for it, eventually the process owns you.
    - andai 2mo ago
      Interesting, could you elaborate please? What does dependency mean in this context? That you become over specialized for a niche?

oliculipolicula 2mo ago

I wanted to post this which explains the wording but I thought the transcript was more interesting. Sorry. Maybe mods can help me to put what follows as auxiliary link. I don't know how. https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2026-07-25/deepseek-said-to-tell-backers-of-funding-pause-after-viral-posts https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2026-07-25/deepseek-... Update: Less-paywalled word-for-word copy it seems at https://fortune.com/2026/07/25/deepseek-liang-wenfeng-backers-fundraising-pause-viral-posts-investors/ https://fortune.com/2026/07/25/deepseek-liang-wenfeng-backer... https://archive.ph/zpIrG https://archive.ph/zpIrG

SyneRyder 2mo ago
Most of that is paywalled, but this one paragraph in the Bloomberg article suggests it might be more to do with investors leaking information: "The suspension stemmed in part from Liang’s frustration over online reports about his comments to investors during his first financing deal" The part of the transcript I'd seen floating around online was this part from around 1 hour 26 min: "With the largest models available today, we simply cannot afford to train them. Even if we spent all five hundred billion yuan, we still wouldn't be able to do so. Even if we could accumulate the resources, we wouldn't have the means to utilize them. The current largest model requires approximately 800 billion activations; domestically, we are still at a scale of several dozen billion activations, and even the largest domestic model may only require several dozen billion activations—a difference of an order of magnitude. To train a model of the same size as an AI system, we would need around 50,000 GB300 GPUs or Huawei 950 GPUs, totaling two hundred thousand cards. This is merely training; research has not yet been considered. Therefore, the biggest gap between us and the United States lies in resources."
- carterschonwald 2mo ago
  amusingly ive been working on ultra sparse llm inference/ training/ model design because nature loaths a dense graph/matrix and cause i think it shoukd be possible. i actually stood up a 20-25 percent faster than sota causal fast attention kernel yesterday, will be standing up cuda/metal/armv8 kernels too and thats gonna be fun. i genuinely think these models should be like 0.1 percent sparse for same capabilities we associate with them today, but theres no sane way to do that with extent tools. i built the right core tech for that in 2014 when there wasnt a market, but now there is and the experimentation velocity is wild. amusingly llms really have a hard time using my simple apis because its not in distribution array programs. but i literally stood up cpu custom memory format and micro kernel for dense causal attention in less than 24-36 hours and outperforms the equivalent fused ggml/llama cpp fast oath by like 20-25 percent

ansk 2mo ago

I skimmed the doc and my impression is that your second listed interpretation -- DeepSeek is pausing investment because of a leak -- is the more correct one. There's quite a bit of confidential information in the doc about the company and how it's positioning itself going forward to compete with US labs. I'd imagine they're not happy at all with this being leaked and are withholding investment as a punitive measure. Not to mention the other interpretation seems illogical -- why would you pause fundraising if your perception was that you lacked resources compared to your competitors?

tedggh 2mo ago
Maybe because if you need more money to catch up with your competitors than anticipated then your ROIC is lower and your valuation changes?
asdf88990 2mo ago
Because money isn’t free and if you know there is a chokehold in supply, why raise money ar current valuation when things are getting better by the day?
z0ltan 2mo ago
[dead]

crazylogger 2mo ago

All the Chinese reporting I see point to the second (majority) interpretation. Liang being furious about his private investor talk leaked online is the news here. e.g. https://x.com/_FORAB/status/2081034500101017616?s=20 https://x.com/_FORAB/status/2081034500101017616?s=20

credit_guy 2mo ago
Those could be subsequent developments, but that's not what the linked transcript was about. The transcript was a discussion of the DeepSeek founder (Liang Wenfeng) with investors, and he does not mention any leaks, or any frustration. He simply says that he is constrained by the supply of cards, and he has no problem of getting funding, but has no reason to raise further funding because he can't transform the cash into cards. > There is certainly no shortage of funds or resources --- in fact, all these are readily available [...] > Within our financial capacity, it's undoubtedly true that the more cards are always better. Our current strategy is to purchase as many cards as possible at a reasonable price --- exactly how many we can afford after using this funding round. The spending pace isn't predetermined; we'll buy whatever is available as long as prices remain competitive. In fact, I'd consider that a positive outcome if we spend the entire amount within six months. [...] > In reality, spending such a large sum is no easy task: you can't obtain enough cards, they're hard to come by [...] > Therefore, our only concern is whether we can obtain enough cards. If converting all funds into cards were feasible, we would undoubtedly do so without hesitation and are even willing to pay a premium for this benefit --- it's simply to cost effective. Even after paying the premium, however, achieving this goal remains challenging.
- try-working 2mo ago
  he's pausing because of the leak. the transcript content has nothing to do with it.