A major verdict in the US highlights rising concerns over AI-related economic espionage and the protection of critical technology.
A federal jury in San Francisco has convicted former Google software engineer Linwei Ding, also known as Leon Ding, 38, on 7 counts of economic espionage and 7 counts of theft of trade secrets. The case followed an 11-day trial before US District Judge Vince Chhabria in Northern California.
“This conviction exposes a calculated breach of trust involving some of the most advanced AI technology in the world at a critical moment in AI development,” said Assistant Attorney General John A. Eisenberg. “Ding abused his privileged access to steal AI trade secrets while pursuing PRC government-aligned ventures. His duplicity put U.S. technological leadership and competitiveness at risk.”
“In today’s high-stakes race to dominate the field of artificial intelligence, Linwei Ding betrayed both the U.S. and his employer by stealing trade secrets about Google’s AI technology on behalf of China’s government,” said FBI official Roman Rozhavsky.
Ding was first indicted in March 2024, and a new indictment in February 2025 detailed 7 categories of stolen trade secrets. Prosecutors said that between May 2022 and April 2023, Ding copied more than 2,000 pages of confidential AI-related data from Google’s systems to his personal cloud account.
While still employed at Google, Ding secretly worked with 2 PRC-based technology companies. By early 2023, he was founding his own AI and machine learning company in China and acting as its CEO. He told investors he could build an AI supercomputer by copying and modifying Google’s technology. In December 2023, shortly before resigning, he downloaded the stolen files onto his personal computer.
The stolen material covered Google’s AI hardware and software systems used to train large models, including custom TPU chips, GPU systems, orchestration software, and SmartNIC networking technology.
Ding also applied for a government-backed “talent plan” in Shanghai and said he aimed to “help China to have computing power infrastructure capabilities that are on par with the international level.”
He is scheduled to appear in court again on 03 February 2026. He faces up to 10 years in prison for each trade secret charge and 15 years for each espionage count.
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