Liang Wenfeng, billionaire founder and CEO of DeepSeek, is planning to write the biggest check for the startup’s first-ever funding round, which the company now hopes will raise up to 50 billion yuan ($7.35 billion), according to two people with direct knowledge of the talks. That would make it the biggest funding round by a Chinese AI company ever.

Meanwhile, the funding round has prompted the Chinese AI lab to expedite its plans to generate revenue and become commercially viable. DeepSeek has also recently told some investors it plans to speed up model releases to a tempo closer to the industry norm, according to the two people involved in the talks.