A former Google software engineer is now facing decades in prison after stealing thousands of pages of AI trade secrets to benefit the People’s Republic of China.
In a new press release, the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) says 38-year-old Linwei Ding, also known as Leon Ding, is guilty of seven counts of economic espionage and seven counts of theft of trade secrets following an 11-day trial.
Court documents show that Ding secretly copied more than 2,000 pages of confidential Google documents while employed at the company between May 2022 and April 2023. Ding uploaded the confidential files from Google’s internal network to his personal Google Cloud account and later downloaded them to his own computer shortly before resigning from the company in December 2023.
Prosecutors say the stolen materials were related to the hardware and software systems that power Google’s AI supercomputers, including its custom Tensor Processing Unit (TPU) chips, GPU clusters, networking systems and orchestration software used to train and serve large-scale AI models. The stolen trade secrets also included sensitive information on Google’s AI data center architecture, chip communication software, and SmartNIC networking technology that enables high-speed coordination across thousands of processors.
In mid-2022, Ding discussed taking on a chief technology officer role at an early-stage company in China, and by early 2023, he was in the process of founding his own AI and machine learning company in the country, where he acted as the chief executive officer.
In presentations to potential investors, Ding claimed he could build an AI supercomputer by copying and modifying Google’s technology. Prosecutors also say Ding applied for a Chinese government-sponsored “talent plan” in Shanghai, stating his intention to help China develop computing infrastructure “on par with the international level.”
Ding also intended to assist two Chinese government-controlled entities in developing an AI supercomputer and advancing custom machine-learning chip research.
The former Google employee is now facing 10 years in prison for each count of theft of trade secrets and 15 years for each count of economic espionage. Sentencing will be determined at a later date.
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