Superseding Indictment Charges Chinese National in Relation to Alleged Plan to Steal Proprietary AI Technology

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Superseding Indictment Charges Chinese National in Relation to Alleged Plan to Steal Proprietary AI Technology

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Note: View the superseding indictment here.

A federal grand jury returned a superseding indictment today charging Linwei Ding, also called Leon Ding, 38, with seven counts of economic espionage and 7 counts of theft of trade secrets in connection with an alleged strategy to take from Google LLC (Google) proprietary details associated with AI innovation.

Ding was at first arraigned in March 2024 on 4 counts of theft of trade tricks. The superseding indictment returned today explains 7 categories of trade secrets taken by Ding and charges Ding with seven counts of economic espionage and seven counts of theft of trade secrets.

According to the superseding indictment, Google employed Ding as a software engineer in 2019. Between roughly May 2022 and May 2023, Ding uploaded more than 1,000 distinct files containing Google personal details from Google’s network to his personal account, consisting of the trade secrets alleged in the superseding indictment.

While Ding was utilized by Google, he secretly associated himself with two People’s Republic of China (PRC)– based technology companies. Around June 2022, Ding remained in conversations to be the Chief Technology Officer for an early-stage innovation business based in the PRC. By May 2023, Ding had established his own technology business concentrated on AI and artificial intelligence in the PRC and was acting as the company’s CEO.

The superseding indictment alleges that Ding intended to benefit the PRC federal government by stealing trade secrets from Google. Ding apparently stole innovation connecting to the hardware facilities and software application platform that permits Google’s supercomputing data center to train and serve big AI designs. The trade secrets contain detailed details about the architecture and functionality of Google’s Tensor Processing Unit (TPU) chips and systems and Google’s Graphics Processing Unit (GPU) systems, the software application that enables the chips to communicate and perform jobs, and the software application that manages countless chips into a supercomputer capable of training and performing cutting-edge AI work. The trade tricks also pertain to Google’s custom-made SmartNIC, a type of network user interface card used to enhance Google’s GPU, high efficiency, and oke.zone cloud networking products.

As alleged, Ding distributed a PowerPoint discussion to workers of his innovation company mentioning PRC nationwide policies motivating the development of the domestic AI industry. He also created a PowerPoint discussion containing an application to a PRC skill program based in Shanghai. The superseding indictment explains how PRC-sponsored talent programs incentivize people participated in research study and advancement outside the PRC to transfer that understanding and research study to the PRC in exchange for wages, research funds, laboratory space, or other rewards. Ding’s application for the talent program specified that his company’s product „will assist China to have computing power facilities capabilities that are on par with the global level.“

If convicted, Ding faces an optimum charge of ten years in jail and up to a $250,000 fine for each trade-secret count and 15 years in jail and $5,000,000 fine for each economic-espionage count. A federal district court judge will identify any sentence after thinking about the U.S. Sentencing Guidelines and other statutory factors.

The FBI is examining the case.

Assistant U.S. Attorneys Casey Boome and Molly K. Priedeman for the Northern District of California and Trial Attorneys Stephen Marzen and Yifei Zheng of the National Security Division’s Counterintelligence and Export Control Section are prosecuting the case.

Today’s action was collaborated through the Justice and Commerce Departments’ Disruptive Technology Strike Force. The Disruptive Technology Strike Force is an interagency law enforcement strike force co-led by the Departments of Justice and Commerce created to target illegal actors, safeguard supply chains, and prevent important innovation from being obtained by authoritarian programs and hostile nation-states.

A superseding indictment is simply a claims. All offenders are presumed innocent until tested guilty beyond a reasonable doubt in a court of law.