The US Department of Justice has accused a former Google software engineer of stealing AI-related trade secrets from the company, with the aim of using them in two AI-related companies he was associated with in China.
If convicted, Linwei Ding, aka Leon Ding, faces up to 10 years in prison and a $250,000 fine for each of the four counts of trade secret theft for which he was indicted.
Some examples of the type of data Ding allegedly stole include the chip architecture and software design specifications for two new versions of tensor processors for machine learning and artificial intelligence; full technical details of GPUs in Google supercomputing data centers; and software design specifications for the central cluster management system (CMS) in these centers.
Protection from trade secret theft
General Attorney Merrick Garland announced the charges at an American Bar Association event in San Francisco this week. He highlighted it as an example of the vigor with which the US government will prosecute those caught stealing secrets related to artificial intelligence and other advanced technologies to benefit America’s rivals.
“The Department of Justice will not tolerate the theft of artificial intelligence and other advanced technologies that could jeopardize our national security,” Garland said in a statement. “We will fiercely protect sensitive technologies developed in America so that they do not fall into the hands of those who should not have them.”
Google hired Ding, 38, a Chinese citizen and resident of Newark, California, as a software engineer in May 2019. Charging documents unsealed March 6 in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California described the Ding’s job responsibilities as included developing software for optimizing graphics processing units (GPUs) for machine learning, at Google’s supercomputing centers. The work gave Ding authorized access to mountains of sensitive information related to Google’s hardware infrastructure, software platform, artificial intelligence models and applications supported at Google’s supercomputing centers.
THE indictment accused Ding using his authorized access to steal approximately 500 unique files containing Google’s AI-related trade secrets and secretly uploading them to a personal Google Cloud account. The alleged illicit activity began in May 2022 and continued until May 2023.
Affiliation with rivals
In May 2023, Ding is alleged to have quietly founded Shanghai Zhisuan Technology, a China-based company focused on developing a CMS that promised to accelerate ML workloads and accelerate the training of AI models. Shortly thereafter, Ding, as CEO of his startup, applied for and gained acceptance to a China-based incubation program for high-tech startups. In introducing his company to investors with the incubator, Ding allegedly openly touted his experience with Google and declared his goal to “replicate and upgrade” Google’s technology to “develop a computational power platform suited to China’s national conditions.” .
Separately, and starting last June – a month after completing his alleged data theft – Ding also began corresponding with the CEO of an early-stage tech startup in China that developed software to accelerate machine learning on GPUs . The CEO offered Ding $14,800 a month plus an annual bonus and company stock to join the company as chief technology officer. Ding is alleged to have traveled to China in October 2022, remaining there until the end of last March, during which time he attempted to raise capital for the company in his role as CTO.
Ding resigned from Google on December 26, a couple of weeks after allegedly uploading a series of additional documents containing sensitive information from Google’s network to his private account. Ding had explained the upload to Google investigators who had detected the activity. But after he resigned, a subsequent investigation revealed Ding’s alleged data theft, leading Google investigators to recover Ding’s laptop and mobile device from him.
A story of insiders stealing secrets for China
The FBI seized Ding’s electronic devices and other evidence after executing a search warrant at his home in early January. They discovered the theft of the 500 files by examining the contents of Ding’s personal Google accounts for which they obtained a separate search warrant. The FBI arrested Ding in Newark earlier this week.
Ding’s arrest and indictment once again focuses attention on what the U.S. government and others have described as the rampant theft of U.S. trade secrets and intellectual property by individuals and agents working for companies based in China in recent years. In many cases, cyber threat groups are believed to be working on behalf of the Chinese government – were responsible for the robberies.
But as with the latest arrest, there have been several recent cases in which individuals working for U.S. companies have stolen secrets and attempted to pass them on to Chinese companies and entities. In February 2024 the US government charged Chenguang Gong, a naturalized American citizen, of stealing nuclear secrets from a California defense contractor and attempting to pass them on to the Chinese military. Last May, a federal grand jury indicted the ex Weibo Wang, Apple employee of attempting to steal information related to autonomous vehicle technology and use it at a China-based company in the same space.