Former Google Engineer Convicted of Stealing Artificial Intelligence Trade Secrets for China
A federal jury in San Francisco has convicted Linwei Ding, a former software engineer at Google, of stealing proprietary artificial intelligence technology to benefit companies based in China. The verdict concludes a high-profile trial where Ding was found guilty on seven counts of economic espionage and seven counts of theft of trade secrets.
Background investigations revealed that Ding, who joined Google in 2019, was tasked with developing software for the company’s supercomputing data centers. Prosecutors presented evidence showing that beginning in 2022, he uploaded more than 2,000 confidential files to a personal cloud account. These documents contained detailed schematics for Google’s Tensor Processing Units (TPUs) and GPU orchestration software, which are vital for training large-scale AI models. Further inquiry uncovered that while maintaining his position at Google, Ding had secretly accepted a role as Chief Technology Officer for a Beijing-based technology firm and had founded his own startup in Shanghai, aiming to replicate Google’s infrastructure capabilities.
During the proceedings, the defense presented several objections to the prosecution’s narrative, arguing that the specific files Ding accessed did not constitute “trade secrets” under the strictest legal interpretations. The defense team contended that the information was not effectively monetized and suggested that Ding’s actions were not intended to cause direct economic harm to his employer. Legal experts note that proving the specific “intent to benefit a foreign government” is often the highest hurdle in economic espionage cases. Despite these arguments, the jury was persuaded by evidence of Ding’s evasion tactics, which included copying data into Apple Notes and converting files to PDF formats to bypass Google’s internal security protocols.
Ding now faces a maximum sentence of 10 years in prison for each count of trade secret theft and up to 15 years for each count of economic espionage. The conviction underscores the intensifying scrutiny by US authorities on the transfer of sensitive dual-use technologies to foreign competitors.
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