CHINA: When DeepSeek’s revolutionary AI model rocked the tech world earlier this year, it wasn’t just the product that grabbed headlines — it was the people behind it.
And leading that charge was a quiet, unassuming figure named Luo Fuli — dubbed by Chinese media as the “AI genius girl” — who has now become the face of China’s rising AI talent. But her journey to that title was anything but straightforward.
From confused coder to AI trailblazer
Born in 1995 in Yibin, Sichuan, Luo spent her childhood reading books at the local community library — not computer labs. VN Express International reports that when she first encountered computer science at Beijing Normal University, she struggled. Let’s just say, it wasn’t love at first code at all.
Yet, what she lacked in instinct, she made up for in sheer grit. Luo graduated with top honours and went on to earn her Master’s from the Institute of Computational Linguistics at Peking University — one of China’s most prestigious institutions. In 2019, she stunned the academic community by publishing eight papers at the ACL conference in China.
From Alibaba to DeepSeek
Her academic feats caught the eye of China’s tech giants. At Alibaba’s DAMO Academy, she led the multilingual pre-training model VECO and contributed to the AliceMind open-source initiative. These were no minor projects — they were foundational models that underpinned Alibaba’s global AI strategy.
After a brief stint at High-Flyer, she moved to DeepSeek in 2022. There, she became a core developer behind DeepSeek-V2, an open-source foundation model designed to rival even OpenAI’s offerings — a staggering feat considering DeepSeek’s limited resources compared to global juggernauts.
But Luo once wrote on WeChat that she’s not a genius and that she just wants to do difficult things right, humbly rejecting the “genius” label that’s followed her since.
DeepSeek’s youth-first strategy
Interestingly, DeepSeek’s hiring strategy favours raw, youthful brilliance over corporate polish. Founder Liang Wenfeng explained to Chinese media outlet 36Kr, “The top 50 talents may not be in China, but maybe we can create such people ourselves.”
He added, “Innovation first requires confidence. This confidence is usually more obvious in young people.”
The team behind DeepSeek-V2 is a testament to this ethos, with many hailing from elite institutions like Tsinghua and Peking University.
Xiaomi’s S$1.9 million job offer!
Luo’s brilliance didn’t go unnoticed. According to the South China Morning Post, Xiaomi founder Lei Jun reportedly offered her an eye-popping 10 million yuan (about S$1.9 million) annual salary to join his team.
Whether she accepted remains unclear, though The Standard reported that she had quietly left DeepSeek, with no public announcement of her next destination.
And if you ask her how she’s handling the sudden fame, it’s not very well. She admitted on WeChat in February that the praise, though flattering, had been “overwhelming,” even “helpless,” under the pressure of social media attention, which made it harder to stay focused on her work.
A signal to Singapore’s young AI talent
For Singapore’s own AI-generative minds, Luo’s story is a refreshing reminder: Success in tech isn’t just about taking the early-genius path. It’s more about persistence, curiosity, and most critically, staying focused amid whatever noise.
As Singapore continues to invest in AI through initiatives, Luo Fuli’s journey might serve as a blueprint for the value of struggle, growth, and purpose over perfection.
Because, with all the hype-chasing going on, Luo proves that quietly doing the hard things right is what truly makes the difference.
