US prosecutors have accused former Google employee Linwei Ding of stealing trade secrets to benefit two Chinese firms. According to reports, Ding faces a 14-count charge of economic espionage and theft of trade secrets.
If Ding is convicted of the offense, he could face up to 15 years in prison per charge and be forced to pay a fine of $5 million. Each count of trade secret theft attracts a prison sentence of a decade, with a fine of $250,000 coming with it. The case, US v. Ding has been filed at the US District Court, Northern District of California, No. 24-cr-00141.
US prosecutors make allegations against Ding
According to reports, the US prosecutors mentioned that the former Google engineer had been stealing trade secrets to benefit two Chinese firms that had been giving him financial rewards. The prosecutors mentioned that he stole files related to Google’s AI hardware and software. The filing mentioned that the stolen files could have given the firm a competitive edge against firms like Amazon and Microsoft.
The 38-year-old has been charged with seven counts of economic espionage and trade secrets theft by a grand jury in San Francisco. Although he was indicted in March 2024, Ding has been free on bond. According to court records on a trial on December 18, the prosecutors and the defense attorneys discussed a resolution, but still feel the case may still proceed to trial.
Ding turned after Chinese recruitment
According to records, Linwei Ding, who also goes by Leon Ding started working at Google in 2019, with the first of his trade secrets theft coming in 2022, about three years after he was employed at the firm. In the filing made by prosecutors, Ding stole important details related to the hardware infrastructure and software platform that enables Google’s supercomputing data centers to train their large AI models.
US prosecutors mentioned that by May 2023, Ding had already uploaded more than 1,000 sensitive materials and later circulated a PowerPoint presentation to employees of a Chinese startup that he owned. Google has not been indicted, with the company providing assistance to law enforcement during the investigations. The company is also dealing with antitrust investigations initiated by the Chinese administration in the face of Donald Trump’s insistence on tariffs.