Ex-Google Engineer Convicted of Stealing Google’s AI Secrets For China

A U.S. federal jury convicted former Google engineer Linwei Ding of seven counts of economic espionage and seven counts of trade secret theft for systematically exfiltrating over 2,000 pages of confidential AI infrastructure documentation from Google between May 2022 and April 2023, uploading them to a personal cloud account and later downloading them to his computer. Prosecutors showed Ding maintained undisclosed relationships with PRC-based tech entities, pursued government talent programs, and pitched using stolen architectural specifications to build an AI supercomputer for his PRC startup. The conviction underscores national security concerns over transferring cutting-edge AI know-how to PRC-controlled entities; sentencing will follow U.S. guidelines, with up to 15 years per count for espionage and up to 10 years per count for trade secret theft.