On February 4, U.S. prosecutors announced a new 14-count indictment against Linwei Ding, a former Google software engineer.
He is accused of stealing trade secrets related to artificial intelligence to help two Chinese companies he was secretly working for.
Ding, who is 38 years old and a Chinese national, faces serious charges from a federal grand jury in San Francisco. He has seven counts of economic espionage and seven counts of theft of trade secrets.
Each charge for economic espionage could lead to a 15-year prison sentence and a $5 million fine, while each theft charge could result in a 10-year sentence and a $250,000 fine.
Also known as Leon Ding, he was previously indicted in March on four counts of stealing trade secrets. Currently, he is out on bail. His lawyers have not yet commented on the new charges.
Ding’s case is part of a coordinated effort by a special task force created in 2023 by the Biden administration. This initiative aims to prevent advanced technologies from being taken by countries like China and Russia, which could pose risks to national security.
Prosecutors claim that Ding stole crucial information about Google’s hardware and software that helps train large AI models in their supercomputing data centers.
Some of the stolen blueprints were intended to give Google an advantage over competitors like Amazon and Microsoft, reducing its dependence on Nvidia chips.
Ding joined Google in May 2019 and began his thefts three years later while being approached by a startup in China.
By May 2023, he had uploaded over 1,000 confidential files and shared a PowerPoint presentation with employees of a Chinese startup he founded, promoting the country’s support for developing its own AI industry.
Google has not been charged with any wrongdoing and has stated that it has cooperated with law enforcement throughout the investigation.
According to court records from a hearing on December 18, both prosecutors and defense lawyers talked about a possible resolution for Ding’s case but expect it to go to trial.
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