US EditionFormer Google Engineer Found Guilty of Stealing AI Secrets for Chinese Firms
Linwei Ding stole over 2,000 pages of AI trade secrets from Google to aid Chinese firms and startups, marking the first U.S. conviction for AI-related economic espionage.
- On Jan 29, a federal jury in San Francisco convicted Ding Linwei, former Google software engineer, on seven counts each of economic espionage and theft of trade secrets.
- According to evidence presented at trial, Ding Linwei stole more than 2,000 pages of Google AI documents between May 2022 and April 2023 while affiliating with two China-based technology companies and pitching investors he could build an AI supercomputer by copying Google’s technology.
- The government said Ding Linwei transferred more than 1,000 unique files totaling roughly 14,000 pages, uploaded material to his personal Google Cloud account, and targeted Google’s supercomputing data centres and proprietary hardware/software.
- He faces significant sentencing exposure, including up to 15 years per economic espionage count and 10 years per theft count, with a status conference on Feb. 3 and release ordered by U.S. District Judge Vince Chhabria.
- The prosecution was coordinated through the Disruptive Technology Strike Force, and Google cooperated with investigators but was not charged and did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
42 Articles
42 Articles
Ex-Google Engineer Convicted of Stealing AI Infrastructure Secrets for Chinese Ventures
A federal jury in San Francisco has convicted former Google software engineer Ding Linwei of stealing confidential information about Google’s artificial intelligence (AI) computing systems and using it to support China-based ventures. Ding, 38, was found guilty on seven counts of economic espionage and seven counts of theft of trade secrets following an 11-day trial, the U.S. Attorney’s Office announced on Thursday. Prosecutors said the stolen i…
Ding Linwei convicted of stealing Google AI secrets for Chinese companies
Former Google software engineer Ding Linwei was convicted by a federal jury in San Francisco on Thursday of stealing AI trade secrets from the US tech giant to benefit two Chinese companies he was secretly working for, the US Department of Justice said on Thursday. Ding, a 38-year-old Chinese national, was found guilty after an 11-day trial of seven counts of economic espionage and seven counts of theft of trade secrets for stealing thousands…
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