The ZGC Innovation Center bills itself as a one-stop incubator for the tech start-ups of the American future. Its main facility is in Santa Clara, California, just down the road from the Google and Apple campuses. Its new Boston location is squeezed between two of the world’s most prestigious educational institutions — Harvard University and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

As well as abundant office space and laboratories, the centre offers another attraction to ambitious entrepreneurs in artificial intelligence, robotics and other technologies: capital via its investment fund. “Our full incubation and business supporting services in the centre will dramatically speed up your start-up growth,” its website declares.

Yet the incubator could also just as easily be ground zero in a 21st-century innovation war between the world’s two largest economies. Behind the Silicon Valley and Boston facilities is Zhongguancun Development Group, a venture capital fund that originated in Beijing’s technology district and is owned by the city’s municipal government. It is at the sharp end of what has become one of the most neuralgic issues in Washington.