The former Google software engineer Linwei Ding was convicted by a federal jury in San Francisco this Thursday for stealing AI trade secrets from the American tech giant to benefit two Chinese companies for which he secretly worked, the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) said on Thursday.
Ding, a 38-year-old Chinese citizen, was found guilty after an 11-day trial on seven counts of economic espionage and seven counts of theft of trade secrets for stealing thousands of pages of confidential information.
Each count of economic espionage carries a maximum sentence of 15 years in prison and a $5 million fine, while each count of theft of trade secrets carries a maximum sentence of 10 years and a $250,000 fine.
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Ding is scheduled to appear at a preliminary hearing on February 3, according to the DOJ.
Ding’s lawyer, also known as Leon Ding, did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Ding was initially indicted in March 2024 on four counts of theft of trade secrets. A superseding indictment in February broadened the charges.
The case against Ding was coordinated by an interagency task force called the Disruptive Technology Strike Force, created in 2023 by the Biden administration.
Prosecutors said that Ding stole information about the hardware infrastructure and the software platform that enables Google’s ultra‑scale data centers to train large AI models.
Some of the chip projects allegedly stolen were aimed at giving Google, owned by Alphabet, an edge over its cloud rivals Amazon.com and Microsoft, which design their own chips, and reducing Google’s reliance on Nvidia chips.
Prosecutors said that Ding joined Google in May 2019 and began his thefts three years later when he was being courted to join a Chinese early-stage technology company.
Google was not charged and said it cooperated with law enforcement. The company did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
