According to PYMNTS, Chinese AI lab DeepSeek is in preliminary talks with new investors about a funding round that would value it at roughly $71 billion. The discussions follow the company's first-ever raise, reported July 14, of about $7 billion at a $52 billion valuation completed near the end of May. The pace shows how fast capital is chasing China's frontier labs even as US mega-rounds dominate headlines, with OpenAI and Anthropic together taking a large share of a record first half for venture funding. For DeepSeek, whose low-cost models rattled markets over the past year, a fresh round would give it more resources to keep pace with far better-funded American rivals.