Ex-Google Engineer Convicted of Economic Espionage and AI Trade Secret Theft

A U.S. federal jury convicted former Google engineer Linwei Ding (aka Leon Ding) on 14 counts spanning economic espionage and theft of trade secrets after prosecutors said he stole thousands of confidential Google documents tied to the company’s artificial intelligence technology for the benefit of a China-based startup. The U.S. Department of Justice framed the case as protection of U.S. intellectual property and national security, alleging the theft was intended to advantage the People’s Republic of China (PRC).

Reporting indicates Ding began exfiltrating internal materials as early as May 2022, including by copying content into the Apple Notes app, converting it to PDFs, and uploading it to a personal cloud account. The stolen information reportedly covered sensitive AI infrastructure and chip-related technology, including details associated with Google’s AI supercomputing environment (e.g., data center/cluster management components) and hardware/software used to run AI workloads (including TPU/GPU systems and related networking components). Ding was initially indicted in March 2024, with subsequent superseding indictments expanding the alleged timeframe and charges; the case is cited as USA v. Ding, N.D. Cal., No. 3:24-cr-00141.