The launch of Chinese artificial intelligence (AI) upstart DeepSeek sent a shockwave through stock markets. So, naturally, you might be wondering how you can buy into this disruptive company.
As DeepSeek is a private company based in China, its stock is not publicly accessible. However, below we will look at some ways you might be able to gain exposure to the impact and similar start-ups are having on global markets.
Entrepreneur Liang Wenfeng, who has an extensive background in AI research, appears to own nearly all of the company’s stock through a number of holding companies in China. The business started life as a side project of Liang’s quant hedge fund, High-Flyer.
As of February 2025, there is no indication that he is pursuing an initial public offering of the business. So, for the foreseeable future at least, you probably won’t be able to buy DeepSeek stock – unless, perhaps, you have a close relationship with Liang.
How you can get exposure to DeepSeek
While you may not be able to buy DeepSeek stock directly, there are ways you could get exposure to its impact on the AI sector and economy, as well as those of other disruptive start-ups
In 2021 Liang began buying thousands of Nvidia Graphic Processing Units (GPUs), as he started building the side project which eventually became DeepSeek. Alexandr Wang, the head of rival company Scale AI, has claimed the company now has more than 50,000 Nvidia H100 chips – though under US rules that came into effect in 2022 these have not been allowed to be exported to China.
Ironically – given the fall in Nvidia’s stock after DeepSeek’s release – this suggests Nvidia as well as other companies providing computing infrastructure are among those most likely to benefit from the AI app’s success.
For the time being at least, Nvidia dominates the market for the kind of high-end GPUs and chips that companies like DeepSeek, as well as its much larger competitors Amazon, Meta and Microsoft, need in order to develop sophisticated AI models.
Though there is a ban on the export of high-end Nvidia chips to China, the Chinese government has been circumventing the US ban on Nvidia exports. Since DeepSeek requires these chips, further advances by the company – once again, ironically – are likely to be a boon for Nvidia’s business and stock price, regardless of the legality.
And DeepSeek has shown that it is possible for small businesses to compete with the biggest players in AI, which should encourage the prospects of a host of rival AI start-ups around the world, which will need to buy Nvidia chips.
Another company set to benefit from these developments is Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company (TSMC), which manufactures the chips developed by Nvidia. That is another stock to watch, if you think there is more to come from DeepSeek and other AI start-ups.
Elsewhere, the AI boom is fuelling massive investment in the construction of data centres, which store the data these companies need to develop their models as well as that of their users.
There are exchange traded funds (ETFs) and real estate investment trusts (Reits) which offer exposure to the companies building data centres. These include the Global X Data Center & Digital Infrastructure ETF (DTCR) and Digital Realty Trust (DLR) Reit, both listed in the US.
Robin has more than six years of experience as a financial journalist, most of which were spent at Citywire, and covers the latest developments in the investing, trading and currency transfer space. Outside of work, he enjoys reading literature and philosophy and playing the piano.
You can contact Robin at robin@goodmoneyguide.com
