Ex-Google engineer convicted of stealing AI trade secrets
A federal jury convicted former Google engineer Ding Linwei of stealing over 2,000 pages of confidential information about Google's AI computing infrastructure between May 2022 and April 2023, and uploading it to support two Chinese companies where he secretly worked. The jury found him guilty on fourteen federal charges including economic espionage and trade secret theft.
What happened
A federal jury in San Francisco convicted former Google software engineer Ding Linwei, 38, on seven counts of economic espionage and seven counts of theft of trade secrets following an 11-day trial.
Between May 2022 and April 2023, Ding copied more than 2,000 pages of confidential information containing Google's AI trade secrets detailing how Google designs, builds, and operates its supercomputing data centers used to train and run large AI models. He uploaded the information to his personal Google Cloud account and converted Google source files into Apple Notes before converting them to PDFs to avoid detection.
Ding secretly affiliated with Beijing Rongshu Lianzhi Technology Co., Ltd. starting in June 2022 and later founded Shanghai Zhisuan Technology Co. Ltd., telling investors he could build an AI supercomputer by copying and modifying Google's technology. In late 2023, Ding downloaded the trade secrets to his personal computer before resigning from Google.
Reported impact
The theft and misuse of advanced artificial intelligence technology for the benefit of the People's Republic of China threatens the United States' technological edge and economic competitiveness, according to the FBI.
Classification
Sources and evidence
Sources not yet published
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