The marks the first-ever conviction on AI-related economic espionage charges
A federal jury in San Francisco has convicted a former Google software engineer of economic espionage and theft of trade secrets for stealing thousands of pages of confidential artificial intelligence technology and seeking to benefit the People's Republic of China (PRC), the US Justice Department announced.
Linwei Ding, 38, was found guilty on seven counts of economic espionage and seven counts of theft of trade secrets after an 11-day trial before US District Judge Vince Chhabria in the Northern District of California, according to the department's Office of Public Affairs.
Prosecutors said that between approximately May 2022 and April 2023, while employed at Google, Ding stole more than 2,000 pages of confidential information containing the company's AI-related trade secrets. The material was taken from Google's network and uploaded to his personal Google Cloud account, the government said.
"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," Assistant Attorney General for National Security John A. Eisenberg said in a statement.
"Ding abused his privileged access to steal AI trade secrets while pursuing PRC government-aligned ventures. His duplicity put US technological leadership and competitiveness at risk. I commend the trial team and investigators whose exceptional work resulted in this conviction."
Stealing Google's trade secrets
According to evidence presented at trial, Ding secretly affiliated himself with two PRC-based technology companies while still working at Google.
Around June 2022, he was in discussions to become chief technology officer for an early-stage technology company based in the PRC. By early 2023, he was in the process of founding his own PRC-based technology company focused on artificial intelligence and machine learning and was acting as the company's CEO.
In multiple statements to potential investors, Ding claimed he could build an AI supercomputer by copying and modifying Google's technology, according to the Justice Department. In December 2023, less than two weeks before he resigned from Google, he downloaded the stolen trade secrets to his personal computer.
The stolen information included "detailed information about the architecture and functionality of Google's custom Tensor Processing Unit chips and systems and Google's Graphics Processing Unit systems, the software that allows the chips to communicate and execute tasks, and the software that orchestrates thousands of chips into a supercomputer capable of training and executing cutting-edge AI workloads."
The trade secrets also covered Google's custom-designed SmartNIC, a network interface card used to facilitate high-speed communication within its AI supercomputers and cloud networking products.
The case marks the first-ever conviction on AI-related economic espionage charges.
"The jury delivered a clear message today that the theft of this valuable technology will not go unpunished," said US Attorney Craig Missakian for the Northern District of California, in a statement.
"We will vigorously protect American intellectual capital from foreign interests that seek to gain an unfair competitive advantage while putting our national security at risk."
Links to the PRC
The Justice Department also highlighted Ding’s links to PRC government programmes. In presentations to investors, he "called out the PRC's national policies prioritising AI development and innovation," and in late 2023 he applied for a government-sponsored "talent plan" in Shanghai, according to the statement.
In that application, he wrote that he planned to "help China to have computing power infrastructure capabilities that are on par with the international level."
"The theft and misuse of advanced artificial intelligence technology for the benefit of the People's Republic of China threatens our technological edge and economic competitiveness," said FBI Special Agent in Charge Sanjay Virmani for the San Francisco Field Office.
Ding was originally indicted in March 2024, and a superseding indictment returned in February 2025 set out seven categories of trade secrets and charged him with seven counts each of economic espionage and theft of trade secrets.
He is scheduled to appear at a status conference on February 3. He faces a maximum of 10 years in prison for each count of theft of trade secrets and 15 years for each count of economic espionage.
