A Google employee indicted by the US Department of Justice has been accused of stealing confidential AI technology while secretly working for tech companies in China.
The indictment, unsealed on Wednesday by the DOJ, charged Linwei Ding, also known as Leon Ding, with four counts of theft of trade secrets. Authorities said he was arrested Wednesday morning in Newark, California, about 14 miles northeast of Google's Silicon Valley headquarters.
Ding, 38, stole more than 500 files detailing Google's information about its AI data center hardware and software — the building blocks for powerful AI models that are currently taking the world by storm — according to the indictment.
Ding, through an email address, did not immediately respond to a request for comment from Business Insider. Attorney information for Ding was not immediately available.
Prosecutors said in the indictment that he created a secret startup in China, unbeknownst to Google, and that he even got a colleague to badge in for him at Google offices in the US so the company wouldn't find out he was secretly working in China.
"We have strict safeguards to prevent the theft of our confidential commercial information and trade secrets. After an investigation, we found that this employee stole numerous documents, and we quickly referred the case to law enforcement," Google's José Castañeda told Business Insider. "We are grateful to the FBI for helping protect our information and will continue cooperating with them closely."
Castañeda also said the situation involved a single junior employee and that it was not a widespread issue at the company.
The indictment said Ding, who lived in Newark and was a Chinese national, joined Google as a software engineer in 2019. His job involved developing software used in Google's supercomputing data centers.
"Due to Ding's job responsibilities, he was authorized to access Google Confidential Information related to hardware infrastructure, the software platform, and the AI models and applications they supported," the indictment said.
In May 2022, Ding started secretly uploading confidential information from Google to his private Google Cloud account, the indictment alleged.
An email from June 2022 showed the CEO of a China-based tech company offered Ding the role of CTO at a salary of $14,800 per month, according to federal prosecutors. The indictment said that while Ding was in China from October 2022 to March 2023, he attended meetings to raise money for that tech company.
By May 2023, Ding also launched his own China-based tech startup in the AI space and served as acting CEO, according to the indictment.
In November 2023, Ding pitched his company at an investor conference, and a document about the company said, "We have experience with Google's ten-thousand-card computational power platform; we just need to replicate and upgrade it — and then further develop a computational power platform suited to China's national conditions," according to the indictment.
If convicted, Ding could face a $250,000 fine for each count and up to 10 years in prison.
"The Justice Department will not tolerate the theft of artificial intelligence and other advanced technologies that could put our national security at risk," Attorney General Merrick Garland said in a statement about the indictment.
