Mar 11, 2025 02:31 PM IST
Chinese village Mililing is experiencing a tourism surge thanks to DeepSeek founder Liang Wenfeng.
An obscure village in southern China has suddenly caught the eye of tourists after Chinese artificial intelligence (AI) company DeepSeek rose to prominence. The village where 40-year-old Liang Wenfeng, the founder of DeepSeek, was born and raised is now attracting tech lovers, the South China Morning Post said.
The Mililing village in Wuchuan has now received a boost of tourism promtping local authorities to spend money on giving the whole place a facelift.
Wenfeng’s parents work as teachers at a primary school in the village where he studied as a child. In 2002, he went to study at the prestigious Zhejiang University after scoring high in the country’s university entrance examination.
After DeepSeek took the tech world by storm and shocked its American rivals with its competitive AI technology, many people took note of the founder’s background and decided to visit his village out of admiration.
“Some visitors took away a pile of soil, some stones or pieces of leaves,” a local resident told Chinese media.
DeepSeek founder’s village
The Mililing village has over 700 residents and the majority of the population works in agriculture. The younger generation now works in a nearby shoe factory and a large part of theirincome is leasing fish ponds.
But ever since DeepSeek grew to prominence, the village received 10,000 tourists every day during a recent holiday period. As tourists complained about poor infra, a revamp project has been started including providing a facelist to homes and demolishing dilapidated buildings.
The village’s roads were widened, sewage cleaned up and trees were planted. However, the tourism boom has also brought trouble for Liang Wenfeng’s grandfather who lives in their four-storey house in the village which is constantly flooded with tourists.
With the influx of tourism, villagers said that they are grateful to Liang whose success has changed their lives for the better and added that they feel proud of his accomplishments. To honour him, they have set up a fund to support local children who excel at studies.
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