Former Google software engineer faces charges of stealing AI secrets for Chinese firms

The software engineer was identified Linwei Ding, also known as Leon Ding, 38.

As per the US Department of Justice website, Ding is facing seven counts of economic espionage and seven counts of theft of trade secrets.

Ding was initially indicted in March 2024 on four counts of theft of trade secrets.

"The superseding indictment returned today describes seven categories of trade secrets stolen by Ding and charges Ding with seven counts of economic espionage and seven counts of theft of trade secrets," the Department said in a statement.

According to the superseding indictment, Google hired Ding as a software engineer in 2019.

Between approximately May 2022 and May 2023, Ding uploaded more than 1,000 unique files containing Google confidential information from Google’s network to his personal Google Cloud account, including the trade secrets alleged in the superseding indictment.

While Ding was employed by Google, he secretly affiliated himself with two People’s Republic of China (PRC)-based technology companies.

Around June 2022, Ding was in discussions to be the Chief Technology Officer for an early-stage technology company based in the PRC.  

By May 2023, Ding had founded his own technology company focused on AI and machine learning in the PRC and was acting as the company’s CEO.

"The superseding indictment alleges that Ding intended to benefit the PRC government by stealing trade secrets from Google. Ding allegedly stole technology relating to the hardware infrastructure and software platform that allows Google’s supercomputing data center to train and serve large AI models," the Department said.

The trade secrets contain detailed information about the architecture and functionality of Google’s Tensor Processing Unit (TPU) chips and systems and Google’s Graphics Processing Unit (GPU) systems, the software that allows the chips to communicate and execute tasks, and the software that orchestrates thousands of chips into a supercomputer capable of training and executing cutting-edge AI workloads.

The trade secrets also pertain to Google’s custom-designed SmartNIC, a type of network interface card used to enhance Google’s GPU, high performance, and cloud networking products.  

As alleged, Ding circulated a PowerPoint presentation to employees of his technology company citing PRC national policies encouraging the development of the domestic AI industry.

He also created a PowerPoint presentation containing an application to a PRC talent program based in Shanghai.

The superseding indictment describes how PRC-sponsored talent programs incentivize individuals engaged in research and development outside the PRC to transmit that knowledge and research to the PRC in exchange for salaries, research funds, lab space, or other incentives.

Ding’s application for the talent program stated that his company’s product “will help China to have computing power infrastructure capabilities that are on par with the international level.”

If convicted, Ding faces a maximum penalty of 10 years in prison and up to a $250,000 fine for each trade-secret count and 15 years in prison and $5,000,000 fine for each economic-espionage count.

A federal district court judge will determine any sentence after considering the U.S. Sentencing Guidelines and other statutory factors.

The FBI is investigating the case.