Chen Tianqiao launched California-based AI start-up Miro Mind last year, drawing on teams in Singapore, Beijing and Shanghai to develop a deep research agent. But within months, the cross-border model began to unravel. After Beijing opened a review in January of Meta's acquisition of Manus, a Chinese-founded AI start-up that had relocated to Singapore, over potential breaches of export controls, Chen shut Miro Mind's China operation and cut its researchers off from the company's overseas code and data. He has since rebuilt its AI research operations in the US and Singapore.
Chen's experience highlights the challenges facing technology start-ups seeking to combine Chinese engineering talent with US capital and markets as geopolitical tensions and tightening regulations make the model difficult to sustain. "You can no longer benefit from both systems without bearing the obligations that come with each," said Chen Qiheng, a non-resident fellow at the Asia Society Policy Institute. The Chinese billionaire's foray into AI marks his second entrepreneurial venture, more than two decades after founding Shanda, the online gaming company whose Nasdaq listing in 2004 made him China's wealthiest person. He later reinvented himself as a global investor, with holdings including leading technology companies and a timber portfolio in Oregon, after relocating to Singapore in 2010 and then California in 2017.
Chat GPT's rapid adoption in 2023 convinced him that AI represented the "greatest discovery in human history" and offered him the chance to build a business again. He began by launching a few AI application companies before founding Miro Mind, a California-based start-up developing foundation models for scientific and industrial applications, in April 2025. Chen hired Dai Jifeng, a Tsinghua University professor and a prominent AI scientist, to assemble a research team in China to work alongside another in Singapore. Within months, Miro Mind launched an open-source agent specialised in deep research capable of tackling complex tasks such as estimating the likelihood of Federal Reserve rate cuts. Successive versions achieved leading scores on benchmarks including Browse Comp, which tests an AI agent's ability to locate difficult-to-find information online. But conditions shifted in January, when Beijing launched an investigation into Manus's more-than-$2bn sale to Meta, scrutinising whether technology developed by a Chinese-founded company remained subject to China's export control even after it had relocated overseas. Beijing later called off the transaction. The intervention alarmed Chen, as Miro Mind relied on a similar cross-border model, with China-based researchers working with teams abroad. On January 16, Miro Mind shut down its Beijing and Shanghai operations, a move Chen said was intended to create a "firewall" separating the company's overseas operations from China. "The regulatory environment between the US and China had become much more sensitive, so we decided to be extra cautious and cut everything off," he said. Chinese authorities also contacted Miro Mind following the Manus episode, as officials sought information from AI companies about potential technology transfers. Although Dai had obtained an O-1 visa, which allows foreigners with extraordinary skills to work in the US, through Miro Mind, he ultimately remained in China and founded his own AI start-up, joined by several core members of the Beijing team. The split later escalated into a public dispute. Dai accused Chen of seeking to...
Source: Financial Times Companies · Summarized by HeadlinesBriefing