US sanctions five Chinese entities tied to Google AI trade secret theft

The U.S. State Department imposed sanctions on five Chinese entities tied to the theft of artificial intelligence trade secrets from Google, according to the South China Morning Post. The targets include Shanghai Zhisuan Technology, venture capital firm MiraclePlus and three entities connected to MiraclePlus.

Former Google engineer Ding Linwei founded Shanghai Zhisuan in 2023. A federal jury convicted Ding of seven counts of trade secret theft involving confidential code for Google's AI computing infrastructure, including tensor processing units, graphics processing unit systems and networking components. A judge later overturned seven economic espionage convictions while leaving the trade secret theft convictions in place.

The sanctions freeze US assets held by the five entities and prohibit transactions with US people and organizations. They also restrict access to financial services and foreign exchange licenses.

The sanctions were imposed under the Protecting American Intellectual Property Act. MiraclePlus provided seed funding to Shanghai Zhisuan in exchange for equity, according to the State Department statement. Ding was sentenced on September 1 to 12 months minus one day in prison.