Google Staff Steals AI Secrets, Sells to Chinese Startup
Morrissey Technology – Google is suing its employees who allegedly stole the company’s artificial intelligence (AI) technology secrets, then sold them to startup companies in China. The employee, named Linwei Ding or Leon Ding, was charged with stealing AI trade secrets from the technology giant and secretly collaborating with two AI industrial companies based in China.
Ding was charged with four counts of theft of trade secrets. If convicted, he faces up to 10 years in prison for each charge.
“The Department of Justice will not tolerate the theft of artificial intelligence and other advanced technology that could endanger our national security,” said Attorney General Merrick Garland in a statement.
Merrick added that his party would firmly protect sensitive technology developed in the United States (US) so that it does not fall into the hands of parties who should not have it.
Ding, a 38-year-old Chinese national living in California, is accused of copying more than 500 files containing confidential information from Google into his personal account over a period of one year starting in 2022. Prosecutors said these files included technology involved in the central building blocks Google’s advanced supercomputer data.
Ding currently does not have a lawyer to face the lawsuit. As part of his responsibilities at Google FOR4D, prosecutors said, Ding helped develop software used in Google’s supercomputer data centers. The job gave Ding access to Google’s hardware infrastructure, software platforms, and the AI models and applications they support.
The Justice Department said months after Ding allegedly started copying Google files, he was offered a position as chief technology officer for an “early-stage technology company” based in China.
Ding allegedly went to China for several months, where he participated in investor meetings to raise money for the company. Potential investors in the company were told that Ding was an executive and owned 20 percent of the company. Prosecutors said Ding took steps to hide his work while in China, including having other employees use his badge to access his office to make it appear he was in the US. In the following year, Ding founded his own technology company in the field of “AI and machine learning industry.”