The U.S. Department of Justice has charged Chinese software engineer Linwei Ding, who worked at Google, with espionage for stealing trade secrets to strengthen China’s artificial intelligence sector. The charges were filed by the U.S. Department of Justice in March of last year, and the updated indictment revealed that Linwei Ding will face trial not only for 7 counts of economic espionage but also for 7 counts of trade secret theft.
Linwei Ding, who joined Google in 2019 and is also known as Leon Ding, is accused of stealing proprietary chip technology and GPUs used to train Google’s prominent artificial intelligence models, such as “Gemini.” Ding, who denies the charges, is said to have established his own initiative in China in 2023, according to the indictment. He conducted R&D activities abroad and later applied to a Shanghai-based "talent program" that offered monetary rewards to individuals providing technical information to China.
In his application, Ding mentioned that the products he developed would help China build an internationally competitive information technology infrastructure. Correspondence suggests that he planned to serve Chinese government agencies and universities. U.S. prosecutors have stated that Ding could face up to 15 years in prison for each of the economic espionage charges, and up to 10 years for each charge of trade secret theft. Ding's attorneys have not yet commented on the matter.
