Former Google Engineer Found Guilty of Transferring AI Secrets to China
In a San Francisco case, a former Google engineer was found guilty of stealing trade secrets related to the company's artificial intelligence infrastructure and transferring them for the benefit of Chinese interests.
Verdict in High-Profile Trade Secrets Case
A federal jury in San Francisco found a former Google engineer guilty of stealing confidential information related to Google's AI infrastructure and transferring it for the benefit of China. The engineer, Linwei Ding, was convicted on 14 separate counts, including economic espionage and theft of trade secrets.
11-Month Method and Stolen Data
It was determined that Ding copied the company's internal technical documents during his tenure at Google between May 2022 and April 2023. According to the prosecution, Ding operated undetected for approximately 11 months by saving the stolen data to the Apple Notes app, converting it to PDF, and then uploading it to his personal cloud storage.
The stolen materials included low-level specifications of Google's TPU (Tensor Processing Unit) chips, internal TPU instruction sets, and performance characteristics related to high-bandwidth memory access and inter-chip connections. Additionally, documents describing TPU system architectures and software stacks were reported stolen. These documents covered seven categories of trade secrets revealing how Google designs, builds, and operates its AI data centers.
Startup Attempt and Connections
It is alleged that Ding, while still employed at Google, pursued roles linked to China-based companies and sought venture capital funding for his own startup named 'Rongshu'. The prosecution claimed the stolen information was intended to be transferred to these ventures.
"A Calculated Breach of Trust"
Following the court's decision, U.S. Deputy Attorney General for National Security John A. Eisenberg stated in a written declaration, "This conviction exposes a calculated breach of trust regarding some of the world's most advanced AI technologies at a critical moment in AI development."
Potential Prison Sentence and Broader Context
Ding, who started at Google in 2019 and was involved in GPU software development, faces up to 10 years in prison for each of the seven economic espionage charges. The verdict is considered a significant win in AI-related economic espionage, demonstrating how seriously U.S. authorities take AI and related technologies as critical to economic and national security. This development is seen as part of global tensions over technological secrets and international competition. Recently, strategic investments in AI companies have also been an indicator of activity in the sector.
Ding's sentence has not yet been determined. The case is expected to further accelerate technology giants' efforts to protect intellectual property and review employee security protocols.
