The US government has blacklisted a Chinese venture firm established by ex-Microsoft AI scientist Lu Qi for alleged ties to a start-up accused of stealing technology from Alphabet’s Google.
The US State Department announced on Oct 20 measures against Shanghai Zhisuan Technology, founded by Ding Linwei, a former Google software engineer convicted in 2026 of stealing Google AI trade secrets.
Lu’s MiraclePlus, the successor to a Chinese programme run by Silicon Valley’s Y Combinator, and three affiliates drew sanctions for providing seed financing to Zhisuan. The measures may include freezing their US assets and banking restrictions.
MiraclePlus denied investing in Zhisuan and said the US sanctions were imposed without any prior communication, according to a company statement on Oct 21. The firm said it is in talks with relevant parties to have the sanctions lifted and expects the matter to be resolved through “candid communication”.
Established in 2023, Zhisuan developed a software platform designed to help train AI models. Ding applied on behalf of Zhisuan to MiraclePlus’s start-up incubation programme, touting his knowledge of Google’s technology, according to the State Department.
The agency said it imposed the penalties under a law enacted in early 2023 aimed at curbing the theft of US trade secrets.
Lu, a former Microsoft executive, was recruited in 2017 by Baidu to oversee the Chinese search leader’s AI efforts, only to quit a year later citing personal reasons.
In 2018, Lu – recruited by then-Y Combinator President Sam Altman – joined the US firm to help create YC China.
When Y Combinator abandoned the expansion a year later, Lu and his team continued operations under the MiraclePlus brand. It has since backed some of China’s most promising start-ups, including AI inference platform SiliconFlow and robotics maker AgiBot, both of which are considering Hong Kong listings.
Ding secretly affiliated himself with two China-based AI companies while still working as a Google employee, the US Justice Department said following his conviction in January – one of the more closely watched AI IP cases between the world’s two largest economies.
He allegedly siphoned more than 2,000 pages of trade secrets to his personal cloud account, and downloaded files to his computer less than two weeks before resigning in December 2023.
Ding’s defence at the time hinged in large part on arguments that the documents he took do not meet the legal definition of a trade secret. His attorneys said prosecutors failed to show he had any intent to use the documents to benefit his company or China.
He was sentenced to a year’s jail time in September. BLOOMBERG
