Ex-Google engineer Linwei Ding charged with stealing AI secrets to aid Chinese companies
- The Chinese national was arrested in California on 4 counts of federal trade secret theft, each punishable by up to 10 years in prison
- Ding, who had access to confidential information on supercomputing data centres, is said to have worked with firms in China without disclosing this to Google
A former software engineer at Google has been charged with stealing artificial intelligence trade secrets from the company while secretly working with two companies based in China, the Justice Department said on Wednesday.
Linwei Ding, a Chinese national known as Leon Ding, was arrested in Newark, California, on four counts of federal trade secret theft, each punishable by up to 10 years in prison.
The case against Ding, 38, was announced at an American Bar Association conference in San Francisco by Attorney General Merrick Garland, who along with other law enforcement leaders has repeatedly warned about the threat of Chinese economic espionage and about the national security concerns posed by advancements in artificial intelligence and other developing technologies.
“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.”
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Google said it had determined that the employee had stolen “numerous documents” and referred the matter to law enforcement.