Ex-Google engineer accused of stealing AI secrets for Chinese company

A Chinese citizen who recently left his job as a software engineer for Google in California has been accused of trying to transfer artificial intelligence technology to a Beijing-based company that secretly paid him, according to a federal indictment unsealed Wednesday .

Prosecutors accused Linwei Ding, who was part of the team that designs and maintains Google’s massive AI supercomputer data system, of stealing information about the system’s “architecture and functionality,” and of stealing software used to “run” supercomputers orchestrate” at the cutting edge. machine learning and AI technology.”

From May 2022 to May 2023, Mr Ding, also known as Leon, uploaded 500 files, many of which contained trade secrets, from his Google-issued laptop to the cloud using a multi-step scheme that allowed him to “evade immediate detection”, according to the United States Attorney’s Office for the Northern District of California.

Mr. Ding was arrested Wednesday morning at his home in Newark, California, not far from Google’s sprawling main campus in Mountain View, officials said.

Beginning in June 2022, Mr. Ding was paid $14,800 a month — plus a bonus and company stock — by a China-based technology company without informing his supervisors at Google, the indictment said. He is also accused of working with another company in China.

Mr. Ding openly sought funding for a new AI startup company he founded at an investor conference in Beijing in November, boasting that “we have experience with Google’s 10,000-card computing power platform; we just need to replicate and upgrade it,” prosecutors said in the indictment, which was unsealed in San Francisco federal court.

“The Department of Justice will not tolerate the theft of artificial intelligence and other advanced technologies that could endanger our national security,” said Attorney General Merrick B. Garland, who announced the charges during an appearance at an American Bar conference Association in San Francisco. on Wednesday afternoon.

The charges underscore the battle for primacy in the field of artificial intelligence. While American companies have made the most progress in generative AI, China has made the cut a strategic priority to lead the growing field.

Tech industry insiders estimate that China is at least a year behind the United States, but many Chinese startups have leveraged American technology to keep up, especially Meta’s open-source large language model called Llama. Generative AI, which is behind ChatGPT and the wave of conversational chatbots, has quickly become one of the world’s most coveted technologies.

Within seconds, these types of tools can generate compelling text and images that can be used to increase productivity, create disinformation, or provide entertainment. Audio and video capabilities aren’t far behind. Google has developed some of the fundamental breakthroughs that make these systems work. The company has said that its latest group of AI models, called Gemini, are among the most powerful available today.

But since ChatGPT’s debut, Google has lost its status as a market leader and its stumbles have attracted attention. The company has been widely criticized for racial bias in its image generator, disrupting users’ ability to create images of people.

Allegations of intellectual property theft have been a major sticking point in US-China relations for years. In 2015, a Chinese national was arrested for sell some of IBM’s source code to parties in China. In 2018, a former Apple employee was arrested while trying to board a flight to Beijing with the company’s trade secrets in the field of autonomous driving.

In the same year, the Chinese company Sinovel Wind Group was convicted of stealing wind turbine technology of a Massachusetts-based company, AMSC, which suffered more than $800 million in losses.

In October, Christopher A. Wray, the FBI director, said that theft of intellectual property from China was a danger to U.S. economic and national security, describing it as the “defining threat of this generation.”

José Castañeda, a Google spokesperson, said in a statement: “We have strict security measures in place to prevent the theft of our confidential commercial information and trade secrets. After investigation, we discovered that this employee had stolen numerous documents and quickly referred the matter to the police. We are grateful to the FBI for their assistance in protecting our information and will continue to work closely with them.”

Google added that its security systems worked as intended and that this “junior employee” acted alone.

But the indictment suggested that Mr. Ding had some help: Another Google employee managed to steal Mr. Ding’s identification card at a company office to help him conceal a trip to China, the indictment said.

It was not immediately clear whether Mr. Ding has legal representation.

The government provided few details about the life of Mr. Ding, who started working for Google in early 2019 and suddenly quit in January — after booking a one-way ticket to Beijing.

Mr Ding listed a degree from the Dalian Institute of Technology in China in 2010, along with degrees from the University of Southern California and Stanford, on a LinkedIn page that matched his name and details of his employment at Google.

The page lists assignments at software semiconductor and healthcare companies over the past decade, along with awards he says he earned at Google, including the “Perfy Award and Feats of Engineering.”

Kitty Bennett reporting contributed.