Qi Lu's MiraclePlus Sanctioned by the US: Former Google Engineer Espionage Case Involves 5 Chinese Entities

Beating AI News Flash: The U.S. Department of the Treasury on October 19 added MiraclePlus, founded by Lu Qi, and its 3 affiliated entities to the sanctions list. Also sanctioned in the same batch was Shanghai Zhisuan Technology, involving a total of 5 Chinese entities. The sanctions measures include freezing assets under U.S. jurisdiction, restricting financial transactions, and prohibiting U.S. persons from certain equity and debt investments.

This round of sanctions stems from the trade secret theft case of former Google engineer Ding Linwei. The U.S. Department of Justice said that during his employment he privately uploaded more than 2,000 pages of Google internal materials, involving TPU and GPU chips and AI supercomputing infrastructure. Ding Linwei later founded Shanghai Zhisuan Technology and, while pitching the project at the MiraclePlus startup camp, claimed the ability to replicate Google's AI supercomputing technology. The U.S. Department of State disclosed that MiraclePlus provided it with seed funding and obtained company equity, and was therefore determined to have provided significant support to the relevant trade secret theft conduct.

The U.S. Department of the Treasury allows MiraclePlus and its 3 affiliated entities to gradually wind down existing transactions under a transitional license before January 19, 2027.