A former Google software engineer has been accused of stealing AI trade secrets and passing them on to companies in his home country. On March 5, a federal jury in San Francisco charged Linwei Ding with four counts of stealing trade secrets.
Ding Linwei, 38, faces up to 10 years in prison and a fine of up to $250,000 per count if convicted in Newark**. It is reported that Ding Linwei is not a US citizen at present, and once convicted, he will be repatriated to China after serving his sentence.
The stolen information is related to hardware infrastructure and software platforms through which Google's supercomputing data centers learn to train large AI models, according to the indictment.
Trade secrets contain detailed information about the architecture and capabilities of chips and systems, as well as software that helps drive supercomputers "capable of performing the most cutting-edge machine learning and artificial intelligence technologies."
According to the U.S. Department of Justice, Ding is suspected of transferring this sensitive information from Google's network to his personal email and cloud accounts, while secretly establishing ties with two companies in his home country that are engaged in the artificial intelligence industry.
Mr. Ding did not disclose his relationship with the two companies to Google (he allegedly helped form one of them).
According to the indictment, Ding also founded his own tech company without Google's knowledge until May 30, 2023, and served as the company's chief executive, which is mainly in the artificial intelligence and machine learning industries. A company-related document said, "We have experience with Google's Vanka computing platform; We only need to copy and upgrade, and then further develop a computing platform suitable for China's national conditions. ”
A Google spokesperson told the Daily Mail that "we have strict safeguards in place to prevent the theft of our confidential business information and trade secrets".
After an investigation, Google discovered that the employee had stolen a large number of documents and quickly referred the case to law enforcement.
"We are grateful to the FBI for helping protect our information and will continue to work closely with them," Google said. ”
Google is convinced that the incident was the solitary act of a junior employee. The company stressed that the case shows that its security system is working as intended.
A spokesperson for Google explained: "We strongly believe in protecting our trade secrets and have taken legal action. ”
Ding's case marks the first major enforcement action since Deputy Attorney General Lisa Monaco announced last month that the DOJ's disruptive technology strike force would focus on AI-related violations.