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The UK’s domestic intelligence agency has warned British universities to cut ties with a Chinese research institute it says is a front for China’s main spy agency, after more than 100 UK-linked academics worked on projects it funded.

Getting into it: In its first-ever public “espionage alert” last week, MI5 said the China General Technology Research Institute, also known as the China Academy of General Technology, has “very strong ties” to China’s Ministry of State Security and that its “primary purpose” is to fund academic research that improves the agency’s spying capabilities. MI5 said UK academics contributed to projects on artificial intelligence, cybersecurity, covert communications and steganography, the practice of hiding information inside other files.

The agency acknowledged that many researchers likely worked with the institute in good faith without knowing its intelligence links, but warned that anyone who keeps working with it now could be prosecuted under the UK’s 2023 National Security Act. MI5 didn’t name the universities or academics involved.

China’s embassy in London called the accusations “imaginary and purely fabricated” and said it had lodged “solemn representations” with the UK, insisting academic collaboration between the two countries is voluntary, legal and “mutually beneficial.”

This all comes as the UK tries to balance security concerns with closer trade ties to China, its third-largest trading partner. Earlier this year, the UK signed off on China’s plan for a new London embassy, which would be its biggest in Europe. The alert also follows a June warning from the Five Eyes intelligence alliance that Chinese spies were using job sites like LinkedIn to target people who could hand over sensitive information.