Linwei Ding, a Chinese national who is a former software engineer at Google, was indicted on Wednesday for stealing artificial-intelligence trade secrets to aid two Chinese companies that he was secretly working for.
Ding was arrested in Newark, Calif., on four counts of federal trade-secret theft, according to the twelve-page indictment unsealed in the Northern District of California. If convicted, Ding could face up to ten years in prison and receive a $250,000 fine for each count.
“The Justice Department will not tolerate the theft of artificial intelligence and other advanced technologies that could put our national security at risk,” U.S. attorney general Merrick Garland said in a statement from the Department of Justice. “In this case, we allege the defendant stole artificial intelligence-related trade secrets from Google while secretly working for two companies based in China. We will fiercely protect sensitive technologies developed in America from falling into the hands of those who should not have them.”
The indictment alleges that Ding began transferring more than 500 files of Google’s AI trade secrets two years ago and “continued periodic uploads” until last May while he was secretly affiliated with AI companies based in China. Hired by Google in 2019, the defendant became the company’s chief technology officer shortly after the theft started in 2022. As part of the job, Ding traveled to China to participate in investor meetings.
By May 2023, he acted as the founder and CEO of a Chinese start-up that, the indictment states, aimed to train “large AI models powered by supercomputing chips.” Ding never disclosed his affiliation with this company and a separate technology company to Google.
Ding resigned from Google on December 26, three days before his former employer learned that he presented at an investor meeting in Beijing as CEO of the Chinese start-up. Additionally, he arranged for another Google employee to scan his ID badge at a company building to make it look as if he was working there when, in fact, he was traveling abroad.
“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. “The theft of innovative technology and trade secrets from American companies can cost jobs and have devastating economic and national security consequences.”
After discovering that Ding stole “numerous documents,” Google said on Wednesday that it referred the matter to federal authorities.
“We have strict safeguards to prevent the theft of our confidential commercial information and trade secrets,” Google spokesman Jose Castaneda said, according to the Associated Press. “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.”
Ding’s indictment comes as Google’s AI chatbot, Gemini, has come under increasing scrutiny for catering to woke ideals and generating images that are not historically accurate, such as depicting America’s Founding Fathers as “diverse” — meaning non-white. With regard to China, Gemini refused to show images of the 1989 Tiananmen Square massacre and 2019 pro-democracy protests in Hong Kong.