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Linwei Ding, a 38-year-old Chinese national, was taken into custody on Wednesday in Newark, California. According to an indictment by the U.S. Department of Justice, Ding allegedly stole confidential files containing detailed information about Google’s advanced computer chip systems and machine learning software while secretly working for two China-based technology companies.
Linwei Ding: Former Google Engineer that was Arrested for Alleged AI Trade Secret Theft
Linwei Ding, a Chinese national and former software engineer at Google, was arrested and indicted on charges of stealing trade secrets related to Google’s AI technology while working at the company.
Prosecutors allege that beginning in 2021, Ding uploaded hundreds of Google’s proprietary files containing trade secrets to his personal accounts. The files detailed the architecture of Google’s GPU and TPU chips used for AI computing, as well as software to operate the chips and orchestrate them into powerful AI supercomputers.
Around the same time, Ding was allegedly offered a chief technology officer role at a Chinese AI startup, with a salary over $170,000 plus bonuses and stock options. He is accused of traveling to China, participating in investor meetings, and trying to raise funds for the company while still employed at Google.
Ding allegedly took the files after being offered a chief technology officer role at one of the Chinese companies working on large AI models and supercomputing chips, which he did not disclose to Google.
The indictment states that Ding also founded his own AI firm in China aiming to develop large AI models powered by the type of advanced chip technology he allegedly stole from Google. Prosecutors say he failed to disclose these engagements to his employer.
Ding is accused of using methods like uploading files to personal cloud accounts and converting data to PDFs to try to evade Google’s security monitoring.
Google stated it has safeguards against trade secret theft and cooperated with the FBI investigation after discovering the alleged theft internally.
After an internal investigation, Google fired Ding in December 2022 and reported the suspected theft to federal authorities. Investigators found over 500 unique confidential Google files on devices seized from Ding’s home.
Ding faces up to 10 years in prison for each of the four federal trade secret theft charges filed against him by the U.S. Department of Justice.
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