Liang Wenfeng, founder of Chinese AI startup DeepSeek, saw his net worth surge nearly 40-fold in one year, according to financial research firm BestBrokers, as reported by Chinese IT media IT之家. Based on Forbes real-time billionaire rankings, his wealth rose from $1 billion (approx. 1.4 trillion won) to approximately 56 trillion won between July 27 of last year and July 27 of this year, a growth rate of 3,850%, the highest among all surveyed subjects. This surge, driven by DeepSeek’s rising valuation, has placed him in the top 50 global billionaire rankings. Chinese financial circles estimate DeepSeek’s valuation jumped from about 1.5 trillion won last year to approximately 400 billion yuan (approx. 84 trillion won) this year. DeepSeek emerged as a leading Chinese AI company after the “DeepSeek shock” last year, which impacted global markets with its low-cost, high-performance AI model. As of July 27, there were 3,356 billionaires worldwide with net worths exceeding $1 billion; the U.S. led with 990, followed by China with 511, whose combined assets reached approximately 2,918 trillion won. China’s richest person was Zhang Yiming, founder of ByteDance, with a net worth of about 98 trillion won. Elon Musk, CEO of Tesla, ranked first in absolute wealth increase, with his