DeepSeek founder Liang Wenfeng is actively meeting with embodied AI startups. The company is evaluating whether to build in-house or invest their way into robotics and physical AI systems.

This signals a strategic shift: language models are table stakes now, the real AGI race is moving to embodied intelligence - robots that can interact with the physical world. DeepSeek proved they can build efficient LLMs at scale, now they're eyeing the hardware-software integration challenge that Tesla, Figure, and 1X are tackling.

Key question: will they build their own robot stack or back existing teams? Given their track record of vertical integration and cost efficiency, betting on in-house development makes sense.