Bay Area ex-Google employee Linwei Ding was arrested in Newark, California, for stealing artificial intelligence technology from the company. The Justice Department said on Wednesday that Linwei Ding was secretly working with two Chinese-based companies.
The 38-year-old Chinese nationalist was arrested on four counts of federal trade secret theft, which is punishable by a maximum of 10 years in federal prison along with fines. The US Attorney General, Merrick Garland, gave the statement.
In further investigation, Google found out that Linwei Ding had uploaded hundreds of confidential files to his Google Cloud account two years ago. Linwei Ding, who was hired by Google in 2019, had access to the company’s supercomputer data center’s confidential information.
The stolen files are about the hardware and software that Google uses in its data centres to train large AI models for machine learning.
“The justice department will not tolerate the theft of artificial intelligence and other advanced technologies that could put our national security at risk,” Garland said.
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Linwei Ding’s arrest shows “the lengths affiliates of companies based in the People’s Republic of China are willing to go to steal American innovation”, the FBI director, Christopher Wray, said in the statement. Furthermore, he added, “The theft of innovative technology and trade secrets from American companies can cost jobs and have devastating economic and national security consequences,”.
According to the indictment, Ding was contacted in June 2022 by the CEO of a Chinese early-stage technology business, Beijing Rongshu Lianzhi Technology Co (Rongshu), and offered the post of chief technology officer at a monthly salary of $14,800.
Ding also formed his Chinese startup, Shanghai Zhisuan Technology Co (Zhisuan), and declared himself CEO before May 2023, according to the report.
According to the accusation, Ding never notified Google of his involvement with Rongshu or Zhisuan.
After Ding resigned from Google in December 2023, the Mountain View, California-based business investigated his network activity history. It detected illicit uploads from May 2022 through May 2023.
Google spokesperson Jose Castaneda said, “After an investigation, we found that this employee stole numerous documents, and we quickly referred the case to law enforcement.”
“We have strict safeguards to prevent the theft of our confidential commercial information and trade secrets,” Castaneda said. “We are grateful to the FBI for helping protect our information and will continue cooperating with them closely.”
It was unclear whether Linwei Ding, 38, had a lawyer who could speak for him at that time. Linwei Ding is facing a fine of $250,000 for each count, along with 10 years in imprisonment.
