A federal jury in San Francisco has convicted Linwei Ding, a 38-year-old former Google software engineer and Chinese national, of economic espionage and theft of trade secrets for stealing highly advanced artificial intelligence technology from the company.
Ding was found guilty on seven counts of economic espionage and seven counts of theft of trade secrets after an 11-day trial before U.S. District Judge Vince Chhabria in the Northern District of California. Prosecutors proved that Ding, who worked on Google’s supercomputing data centers, began exfiltrating confidential data in 2022, transferring more than 2,000 files containing trade secrets to a personal cloud account. The stolen material included detailed architecture and functionality of Google’s custom Tensor Processing Unit (TPU) chips, GPU systems, communication software for chips, and orchestration platforms capable of training and running cutting-edge AI workloads.
A year later, Ding founded an AI technology company in China. Google security investigators discovered the theft, leading to his indictment in March 2024. Court documents showed Ding planned to use the stolen technology to aid the Chinese government’s AI development efforts. Assistant Attorney General John A. Eisenberg called it “a calculated breach of trust involving some of the most advanced AI technology in the world,” noting Ding “abused his privileged access to steal AI trade secrets while pursuing PRC government-aligned ventures.”
Assistant FBI Director Roman Rozhasvsky emphasized the case’s significance as the first conviction for AI-related economic spying, demonstrating the FBI’s commitment to protecting American businesses from China’s “increasingly severe threat” to economic and national security. U.S. Attorney Craig H. Missakian stressed that Silicon Valley’s leadership in AI drives U.S. economic growth and national security, and the jury’s verdict sends a clear message that theft of this technology will not go unpunished.
Ding faces a maximum of 70 years for the trade secrets counts and 105 years for the espionage counts. His lawyer, Grant P. Fondo, said they respect the jury’s verdict but are disappointed and plan to appeal.
