A former Google engineer accused of stealing thousands of confidential company documents to build a startup in China has been sentenced in the United States, the Department of Justice (DoJ) announced Thursday.
Linwei Ding (also known as Leon Ding), 38, was convicted by a federal jury of seven counts of economic espionage and seven counts of trade secret theft for stealing more than 2,000 documents containing trade secrets from tech giants related to artificial intelligence (AI) technology for the benefit of the People’s Republic of China (PRC).
“Silicon Valley is at the forefront of artificial intelligence innovation, pioneering innovative efforts to promote economic growth and strengthen national security,” said U.S. Attorney Craig H. Misakian. “We will vigorously protect America’s intellectual capital from foreign interests seeking to gain unfair competitive advantages at the risk of national security.”
Mr. Ding was indicted in March 2024 for transferring confidential confidential information from Google’s network to his personal Google Cloud account. The stolen documents included details about the company’s supercomputing data center infrastructure used to run the AI models, the cluster management system (CMS) software that manages the data centers, and the AI models and the applications they support.
Specifically, trade secrets related to:
Architecture and capabilities of Google’s custom Tensor Processing Unit chips and systems, and Google’s Graphics Processing Unit systems Software that enables chips to communicate and perform tasks Software that integrates thousands of chips into supercomputers that can train and run cutting-edge AI workloads Custom-designed SmartNIC, a type of network interface card used to facilitate high-speed communications within Google’s AI supercomputers and cloud networking products
The thefts occurred between May 2022 and April 2023. Mr. Ding, who joined Google in 2019, is said to have worked for two high-tech companies based in China, including a start-up called Shanghai Zhifu Technology Co., Ltd., which he founded in 2023 while still employed. Ding downloaded the document onto his computer in December 2023, less than two weeks before he resigned from Google.
“In or about June 2022, Mr. Ding was in talks to become chief technology officer of an early-stage technology company based in China. By early 2023, Mr. Ding was preparing to form his own technology company in China focused on AI and machine learning, of which he was serving as CEO,” the Justice Department said.
The 2024 case alleges that the defendants took a number of deceptive steps to conceal the theft of trade secrets, including copying data from Google source files into the Apple Notes application on a company-issued MacBook and converting the notes to PDF files before uploading them to a Google account.
Prosecutors also accused Ding of asking another Google employee to use a company-issued access badge to scan the entrance to a Google building, creating the impression that he was working from an office when he was actually in China. The plan unraveled in late 2023 when Google learned that he had given a public presentation about his startup to potential investors in China.
In February 2025, Ding was indicted on charges of economic espionage, and a superseding indictment also alleges that he applied to work for a Shanghai-based “talent” sponsored by Beijing. The indictment also charges that these talent programs encourage individuals working in research and development abroad to come to China and contribute to the country’s economic and technological growth.
“Mr. Ding’s application for the talent program stated that he planned to ‘help China develop computing power infrastructure capabilities on par with the international level,'” the Justice Department said. “Evidence at trial also showed that Ding intended to benefit two Chinese government-controlled organizations by helping develop AI supercomputers and collaborating on research and development of custom machine learning chips.”
Mr. Ding is scheduled to attend the status meeting on February 3, 2026. He could be sentenced to up to 10 years in prison for each trade secret theft charge and 15 years for each economic espionage charge.
Source link
