Outside Source
A former Google engineer of Chinese origin faces up to 175 years in prison for allegedly stealing AI trade secrets and leaking them to China-based tech firms.
News
A Chinese national working for Google in the United States faces economic espionage charges for allegedly stealing Google’s proprietary information related to AI technology, the US Department of Justice said on Feb. 5.
The 14-count superseding indictment accuses Linwei (Leon) Ding of uploading over 1,000 confidential Google files to his personal Google Cloud account between May 2022 and May 2023. The information allegedly included proprietary data on Google’s hardware infrastructure and software platform, which supports the company’s AI supercomputing systems.
Ding, who was employed as a software engineer at Google since 2019, allegedly developed secret affiliations with two Chinese technology companies.
According to the court document, the accused intended to benefit the Chinese government by stealing trade secrets from Google.
Sharing trade secrets with tech companies in China
Ding allegedly began discussions with the chief technology officer of a Chinese tech company in June 2022. By May 2023, he secretly founded an AI and machine-learning company in China and was serving as its CEO.
LinkedIn profile of Linwei (Leon) Ding. Source: LinkedIn
According to the DOJ, Ding stole sensitive trade secrets, including details about Google’s custom-designed SmartNIC, Tensor Processing Unit (TPU), and Graphics Processing Unit (GPU) chips and systems.
Additionally, sensitive software built for chip communications and next-generation AI innovations were also leaked to benefit the People’s Republic of China (PRC) government.
Attacking Google from within
Related: US-China tariffs cost Bitcoin $100K mark as analyst eyes all-time high
The DOJ notice further alleged that Ding created and circulated PowerPoint presentations for the employees of his Chinese company, which cited PRC national policies and talent programs in China with statements like, “will help China to have computing power infrastructure capabilities that are on par with the international level.”
The case is currently under investigation by the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), and the defendant has yet to be proven guilty. Ding was initially indicted in March 2024 on four counts of theft of trade secrets.
If convicted of all seven counts of economic espionage and seven counts of theft of trade secrets, Ding will face 175 years of imprisonment and up to $36.75 million in fines. However, the final fine judgment is based on the US Sentencing Guidelines and other factors.
Magazine: Pectra hard fork explained — Will it get Ethereum back on track?
This article first appeared at Cointelegraph.com News
