DeepSeek founder Liang Wenfeng, 'deep diver' Du Mengran named to Nature's 2025 influential list

Liang Wenfeng, founder of the Chinese AI firm DeepSeek, and Chinese geoscientist Du Mengran have been selected for the journal Nature's annual "Nature's 10" list, which highlights ten people at the heart of some of the biggest science stories of 2025.

The two are recognized for their respective contributions: Liang for driving the development of powerful large-scale AI models, and Du for pioneering deep-sea exploration that revealed some of the deepest animal ecosystems ever observed on Earth.

In profiling Liang, Nature noted that his company "rocked the world of artificial intelligence" in January with the release of its powerful and cost-effective R1 model. The journal stated that the move "instantly demonstrated that the United States was not as far ahead in AI as many experts had thought."

The feature on Du highlighted her pioneering dives to the hadal zone – the ocean's deepest layer, beyond six kilometers. At the bottom of the Kuril-Kamchatka Trench, northeast of Japan, she and her team discovered "the deepest-known ecosystem with animals on the planet."

This year's "Nature's 10" reflects a broad range of scientific endeavors and societal challenges, spanning fields including astronomy, deep-ocean research, biomedicine, research integrity, public health policy and artificial intelligence. The selection illustrates how advances across both the largest and smallest scales of nature, long with essential work in research ethics and health policy, are shaping science and society in 2025.

Also featured on the list is "trailblazing baby" KJ Muldoon, an American infant born with an ultra-rare genetic disorder. At six months old, he became the first person to receive personalized CRISPR-based genome-editing therapy, offering new hope for the treatment of rare genetic diseases.

Other notable honorees include Susan Monarez, former director of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, microbiologist and immunologist; Indian data scientist Achal Agrawal; physicist Tony Tyson from the University of California, Davis; South African public health official Precious Matsoso; neurologist Sarah Tabrizi from University College London; agricultural engineer and entomologist Luciano Moreira from Brazil; and systems biologist Yifat Merbl from Israel.

Compiled by Nature's editors, the list is not a ranking or award, but a curated exploration of key scientific developments and the individuals – often working within larger teams – who played significant roles in them.

Brendan Maher, a features editor at Nature, said the 2025 list celebrates "the exploration of new frontiers, the promise of groundbreaking medical advances, an unwavering commitment to safeguarding scientific integrity, and those shaping global policies that save lives."

He added that "it is inspiring to see the work of so many people who are working hard to understand the natural world and, in many cases, to help it."

(With input from Xinhua)