Chinese enterprise software provider Kingdee International Software Group is fully embracing artificial intelligence (AI) as DeepSeek significantly reduces costs for businesses to adopt large language models, company executives said in an interview. “DeepSeek is a groundbreaking product,” George Liu, Kingdee’s vice-president and head of research and development, said in an interview on March 18. “It’s open-source and accessible to all … which brought significant benefits for companies like Kingdee and our clients.” Kingdee is one of the largest software-as-a-service (SaaS) providers in China. Last Month, the company said it had incorporated DeepSeek models into its offerings, addressing business management needs in areas including finance, human resources and supply chain. It also launched a platform called Cosmic, enabling enterprises to build their own customised AI agents based on DeepSeek models. The company’s Hong Kong-listed shares have surged about 90 per cent this year. “Before DeepSeek, software vendors’ abilities were limited,” said Kingdee president Zhang Yong. “Not every company has the investment resources to develop large AI models, and if you integrate other models, they’re usually very expensive.” The emergence of DeepSeek “broke AI hegemony” and made Kingdee’s products and technology “completely self-sufficient and controllable”, company founder, chairman and CEO Xu Shaochun wrote in an article published on WeChat earlier this month. With the goal of becoming an “AI enterprise management company” by 2030, Kingdee plans to invest about 200 million yuan (US$27.6 million) in AI development over the coming year, Zhang said in the interview. The budget will be used to attract AI talent, enhance computing power, and potentially develop its own AI models, he added. Kingdee aims to have AI account for 20 per cent of its annual recurring revenue, the company said. Founded in the early 1990s as a provider of accounting tools for Chinese businesses, Kingdee has grown into one of China’s largest corporate software developers over the years. Over the past decade, the company has transformed into a cloud services business. In 2014, in a symbolic gesture of Kingdee’s commitment to a cloud-based future, Xu smashed a piece of server hardware at the company’s annual event. Currently, Kingdee’s main business is SaaS, a subscription-based cloud service model that generates recurring revenue from software that the company maintains on its own servers. In 2024, Kingdee’s cloud services revenue grew 13.4 per cent year on year, accounting for about 81.6 per cent of the company’s total revenue, according to its latest annual results. Losses for the year narrowed by 32.3 per cent to 142 million yuan from 209 million yuan in 2023. Kingdee is also looking to expand into overseas markets, aiming to become one of the top three software providers in Southeast Asia and the Middle East within five years, Zhang said. The company established overseas offices in Singapore last year and in Qatar last month.