Estados Unidos apunta a una aceleradora china por suspected clandestine funding linked to an artificial intelligence theft case

The problem is not only who developed artificial intelligence software. It is also who financed that software, which partners were selected, and what information moved between companies and employees. On that issue, the United States Department of State has now sanctioned a Chinese venture capital firm and three subsidiaries for allegedly providing early-stage funding to a startup founded by Ding Linwei.

The measures apply to Shanghai Zhisuan Technology, MiraclePlus and three of the accelerator's subsidiaries. According to the Department of State, the startup received initial financing connected to Ding, a former Google software engineer convicted this year over confidential artificial intelligence information.

What the sanctions can change

The sanctions may result in frozen assets in the United States and restrictions on transactions with American financial institutions. The immediate consequence is therefore financial and operational: affected companies may face difficulty moving funds or maintaining banking relationships tied to the US market.

MiraclePlus denied investing in Zhisuan and disputed the action. The firm described the sanctions as unexpected because they were imposed without advance notice. It added that it is holding discussions with the parties involved and expects to seek a reversal of the decision.

• The United States Department of State sanctioned Shanghai Zhisuan Technology, founded by Ding Linwei.
• MiraclePlus and three subsidiaries were included in the measure.
• The alleged link is that the companies financed Zhisuan at an early stage.
• Possible effects include frozen US assets and banking restrictions.
• MiraclePlus denies having invested in Zhisuan and says it is seeking to reverse the decision.

Zhisuan was founded in 2023 and develops software that supports the training of artificial intelligence models. The Department of State said that Ding had presented an application to MiraclePlus's startup incubation program, where he emphasized his knowledge of Google's internal technology.

MiraclePlus is led by Lu Qi, a former artificial intelligence specialist at Microsoft and Baidu. The firm originated in 2019 after Y Combinator abandoned plans to expand in China; Lu continued the operations under that brand. Its portfolio includes SiliconFlow, which works on inference infrastructure, and AgiBot, a robotics company. Both reportedly plan to list in Hong Kong.

The case also reaches Google's cloud environment. According to the Department of Justice, Ding worked secretly with two China-based artificial intelligence companies while he was still employed by Google. Investigators said he took more than 2.000 pages of trade secrets and stored them in a personal cloud account. In September, he received a one-year prison sentence.

The source text ends before presenting the complete defense argument, so it is not possible to reproduce the full defense position from this material. The available excerpt states that the defense argued that the documents did not meet the legal definition of trade secrets and that this had not been demonstrated. With that limitation, the sanctions put the funding chain back under scrutiny. The question is when.