Washington blacklisted a Chinese venture capital firm founded by former Microsoft Corp. artificial intelligence specialist Lu Qi over alleged ties to a startup accused of stealing technology from Alphabet Inc.-owned Google. Bloomberg reports, UNN writes.
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On Monday, the U.S. State Department announced restrictive measures against Shanghai Zhisuan Technology Co., founded by Ding Lingwei, a former Google software engineer who was found guilty this year of stealing Google's artificial intelligence trade secrets.
Sanctions were also imposed on Lu's MiraclePlus — the successor to the Chinese program previously operated by Silicon Valley-based Y Combinator — and three entities associated with it. The reason was the provision of seed funding to Zhisuan. The restrictive measures may include the freezing of assets in the United States and restrictions on access to banking services.
Founded in 2023, Zhisuan develops a software platform for training artificial intelligence models. According to the U.S. State Department, Ding applied on behalf of Zhisuan to participate in MiraclePlus's startup incubation program, emphasizing his knowledge of Google's technologies.
Lu, a former Microsoft executive, moved to Baidu Inc. in 2017, where he was to lead the artificial intelligence division of China's leading search company. However, he resigned a year later, citing personal reasons. In 2018, Lu, who had been invited by then-Y Combinator president Sam Altman, joined the U.S. company to help establish YC China.
When Y Combinator abandoned its expansion into China a year later, Lu and his team continued operating under the MiraclePlus brand. Since then, the company has supported some of China's most promising startups, including artificial intelligence inference platform SiliconFlow and robotics manufacturer AgiBot. Both companies are considering listing on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange. MiraclePlus representatives did not immediately respond to requests sent by email and message.
After Ding was sentenced in January, the U.S. Department of Justice said that he had secretly worked with two Chinese artificial intelligence companies while still employed at Google. The case became one of the most closely watched intellectual property cases involving AI between the world's two largest economies.
According to prosecutors, Ding copied more than 2,000 pages of trade secrets to his personal cloud account and also uploaded files to his computer less than two weeks before resigning in December 2023.
Ding's defense largely rested on the claim that the stolen documents did not meet the legal definition of a trade secret. His lawyers argued that the prosecution had failed to prove an intent to use the documents for the benefit of his own company or China. In September, Ding was sentenced to one year in prison.