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Linwei Ding secretly worked for companies based in China – and founded one of his own – while handling sensitive information at Google, court documents allege.
Former Google engineer Linwei Ding has been charged by the US government for allegedly stealing AI trade secrets from the software giant while secretly working for companies based in China.
An indictment document published this week shows that Ding, a Chinese national, started working at Google as a software engineer in May 2019, where his responsibilities included developing software deployed in the company’s supercomputing data centres.
It claims that during his employment at the Alphabet-owned company, Ding stole more than 500 confidential files containing AI trade secrets while working for China-based companies working in the same sector.
These files, according to the California district that charged Ding with four counts of theft yesterday (6 March), largely relate to Google’s tensor processing unit (TPU) chips, which power many of its AI workloads and are used in its AI models such as Gemini.
Attorney general Merrick Garland said that the US Justice Department will “not tolerate” the theft of AI and other advanced technologies that could “put our national security at risk”.
“We will fiercely protect sensitive technologies developed in America from falling into the hands of those who should not have them,” Garland said.
FBI Director Christopher Wray said that the charges against Ding are an example of the lengths companies based in China are willing to go to “steal” US inventions and gain an unfair advantage in the global race to develop advanced AI technologies.
“The theft of innovative technology and trade secrets from American companies can cost jobs and have devastating economic and national security consequences. The FBI will continue its efforts to vigorously pursue those responsible for stealing US companies’ intellectual property and most closely guarded secrets,” Wray added.
According to the court, Ding began secretly uploading trade secrets that were stored in Google’s network around May 2022 by copying the information into a personal Google Cloud account. He allegedly continued periodic uploads for a whole year.
The indictment also mentions Ding went on to found his own AI and machine learning company based in China last year – without alerting Google – and was acting as the company’s CEO.
“By stealing Google’s trade secrets about its artificial intelligence supercomputing systems, Ding gave himself and the companies that he affiliated with in the [People’s Republic of China] an unfair competitive advantage,” said US attorney Ismail Ramsey.
“This office is committed to protecting the innovation of our Silicon Valley companies. To that end, we will aggressively investigate and prosecute the theft of sensitive trade secrets by insiders like Ding, including criminal efforts to jump start illegitimate competition.”
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