The decision to suspend the funding round is partly due to Liang's dissatisfaction with online reports about his remarks to investors during his first financing deal. That deal, which closed in June and raised $7 billion for DeepSeek, was widely reported on. Chinese media outlets such as Yicai reported that Liang discussed China's reliance on NVIDIA Corp. chips for AI development and its lag behind the US in AI sophistication during a meeting with unidentified parties.