Former Google engineer convicted in AI espionage case

Washington: A federal jury in San Francisco has convicted a former Google software engineer of stealing sensitive artificial intelligence trade secrets for the benefit of China, marking the first-ever conviction on AI-related economic espionage charges, US officials said.

Linwei Ding, also known as Leon Ding, 38, was found guilty on seven counts of economic espionage and seven counts of theft of trade secrets after an 11-day trial before US District Judge Vince Chhabria in the Northern District of California.

Prosecutors said Ding stole thousands of pages of confidential AI-related information from Google while secretly pursuing China-linked technology ventures.

“This conviction exposes a calculated breach of trust involving some of the most advanced AI technology in the world at a critical moment in AI development,” said Assistant Attorney General for National Security John A. Eisenberg. “Ding abused his privileged access to steal AI trade secrets while pursuing PRC government-aligned ventures.”

According to evidence at trial, Ding stole more than 2,000 pages of confidential information from Google’s internal systems between May 2022 and April 2023. Prosecutors said he uploaded the material to his personal Google Cloud account and later downloaded it to his personal computer shortly before resigning from the company.

While still employed at Google, Ding secretly aligned himself with two China-based technology companies, officials said. In mid-2022, he discussed becoming chief technology officer of an early-stage firm in China. By early 2023, he had founded his own artificial intelligence and machine learning company in China and was serving as its chief executive officer.

In investor presentations, Ding claimed he could build an AI supercomputer by copying and modifying Google’s technology. The jury found that the stolen trade secrets related to hardware and software that allow Google’s data centers to train and operate large AI models.

The material included detailed information about Google’s custom Tensor Processing Unit chips, graphics processing unit systems, and the software that enables the chips to communicate and work together. It also covered software used to orchestrate thousands of chips into AI supercomputers and details of Google’s SmartNIC technology used for high-speed networking.

Prosecutors also presented evidence that Ding sought support from the Chinese government. In late 2023, he applied for a Shanghai-based government-sponsored talent program, stating that he planned to “help China to have computing power infrastructure capabilities that are on par with the international level.”

FBI San Francisco Special Agent in Charge Sanjay Virmani said the verdict underscored the government’s commitment to protecting innovation. Ding was first indicted in March 2024. He is scheduled to appear next at a status conference on February 3, 2026, and faces up to 10 years in prison on each theft count and up to 15 years on each espionage count.

IANS