DeepSeek has reportedly taken an unusual step in its fundraising process by asking prospective investors not to poach its employees. The request underscores how fierce the competition for AI talent has become, especially as companies race to secure the people behind advanced models.
The move also shows that the AI contest is no longer limited to chips, data centers, or algorithms. In an industry increasingly viewed as strategically important, researchers have become one of the most closely guarded assets.
A rare condition for investors
According to 36Kr, the requirement was raised during DeepSeek’s first fundraising round, which was valued at $7.4 billion. In a four-hour virtual meeting in May, founder Liang Wenfeng reportedly asked attendees to promise not to recruit DeepSeek staff or encourage them to start their own companies.
That kind of request is highly unusual in investment talks. It reflects how intense the competition has become among Chinese technology companies that are trying to build more advanced AI systems and ultimately move toward artificial general intelligence, or AGI.
Keeping researchers in place has become harder
DeepSeek’s concern is not abstract. The company has already lost some important talent, including Luo Fuli, who was described as a core contributor to its V3 model.
Luo left at the end of last year to lead Xiaomi’s MiMo team, which later released an AI model said to outperform DeepSeek’s model on several benchmarks. The case shows how quickly the departure of one key researcher can affect a company’s competitive position.
The same pattern has been visible elsewhere in China’s AI sector. In a March report, 36Kr said ByteDance lost two major AI developers who moved to Tencent.
Tencent has also continued to strengthen its position through new investment. The Information reported this week that Tencent invested $20 million in a new AI laboratory founded by Juyang Lin, a former lead researcher on Alibaba’s Qwen model.
The talent war is global
The broader backdrop goes far beyond ordinary hiring disputes. Across markets, AI is increasingly treated as a strategic capability that could shape economic and geopolitical influence for decades.
That is why the race for AI researchers has become so sensitive. Every major company wants the best minds on its side, and the fight to recruit them is now as intense as the race to build the technology itself.
A recent example came from the United States, where OpenAI hired a senior AI researcher from Google after Google had rehired that person only months earlier in a deal reportedly worth more than $2 billion.
The episode illustrates how talent competition cuts across borders and company types. Big names, deep funding, and access to ambitious projects have become the main tools for attracting a pool of researchers that remains extremely limited.
For DeepSeek, the message to investors appears clear: capital is welcome, but access to the company’s core people may not be. In a market where the next breakthrough could depend on a handful of researchers, protecting internal teams has become as important as securing the best hardware.