China’s answer to the frontier AI labs is moving toward the ultimate domestic exit: a home-stock listing. Reuters reported Wednesday, citing two people familiar with the matter, that DeepSeek has hired CITIC Securities to run pre-listing tutoring ahead of a possible initial public offering on Shanghai’s STAR Market, with the process targeted to start this year.
For mainland-bound companies, appointing a securities firm for pre-IPO tutoring is the mandatory first chore before an application can be filed. Neither side has settled the timing, the amount to be raised or a target valuation, and both declined to comment, Reuters said.
The listing plan gives DeepSeek a new engine for the capital it needs to fund computing infrastructure, model development and talent retention. Founder Liang Wenfeng hopes the proceeds will fund stronger incentives to keep researchers, and the lab has recently lost staff to better-funded rivals including ByteDance and Xiaomi, DealStreetAsia noted.
A debut would be a landmark for Chinese AI. DeepSeek became a global phenomenon in early 2025 with open-weight models that matched US frontier systems at a fraction of the training cost, and a STAR Market listing would let domestic investors buy in directly. Whether the filing materializes this year will be watched as a gauge of China’s appetite for keeping its most valuable AI assets listed at home.
