A former employee of Google is charged with trying to transfer trade secrets to China after allegedly stealing them from the company’s artificial intelligence (AI) division.
Attorney General Merrick Garland, who has frequently warned about the threat of Chinese economic espionage and the national security concerns posed by advancements in artificial intelligence and other developing technologies, announced the case against Ding, 38, at an American Bar Association conference in San Francisco on Thursday
Chinese national Linwei Ding was taken into custody in Newark, California, on four counts of stealing federal trade secrets, each of which carries a maximum 10-year jail sentence.
According to US court documents, he allegedly downloaded material about Google’s cutting-edge AI hardware, including software that might be utilised as the “brain” of sophisticated supercomputers.
The indictment states that Mr. Ding, was employed by Google in 2019 and that one of his duties was creating this programme.
In May 2022, he allegedly started uploading data from Google’s network to a personal Google account. The indictment states that these uploads persisted on a sporadic basis for a whole year.
He reportedly worked for Beijing Rongshu Lianzhi Technology, a start-up tech company, for several months in China at this time. He was allegedly given $14,800 (£11,620) a month to serve as the company’s Chief Technology Officer, according to the indictment.
But in December 2023, Google security began looking into Mr Ding and gave him the order to remove anything he might have on his drives.
He left Google a few days later and purchased a one-way ticket to Beijing, China, which he planned to depart on January 7, 2024.
But when Google security took his laptop, on January 6, the FBI invaded his house. In Newark, California, on Wednesday, he was taken into custody.
The designs for some of Google’s most cutting-edge AI processors and supercomputer tools were purportedly among the files he had taken.
“Today’s charges are the latest illustration of the lengths affiliates of companies based in the People’s Republic of China are willing to go to steal American innovation,” FBI Director Christopher Wray said in a statement.
“The theft of innovative technology and trade secrets from American companies can cost jobs and have devastating economic and national security consequences.”
Reacting to the incident Google spokesman Jose Castaneda said in a statement. “After an investigation, we found that this employee stole numerous documents, and we quickly referred the case to law enforcement.
We are grateful to the FBI for helping protect our information and will continue cooperating with them closely.”