Ex-Google Engineer Arrested for Stealing AI Technology Secrets for China

The U.S. Office of Justice (DoJ) announced the indictment of a 38-year-outdated Chinese national and a California resident of allegedly thieving proprietary data from Google although covertly doing work for two China-dependent tech organizations.

Linwei Ding (aka Leon Ding), a former Google engineer who was arrested on March 6, 2024, “transferred delicate Google trade strategies and other private data from Google’s network to his personal account although secretly affiliating himself with PRC-dependent organizations in the AI field,” the DoJ stated.

The defendant is said to have pilfered from Google more than 500 confidential files containing synthetic intelligence (AI) trade secrets with the purpose of passing them on to two unnamed Chinese corporations searching to get an edge in the ongoing AI race.

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“Although Linwei Ding was employed as a computer software engineer at Google, he was secretly performing to enrich himself and two firms based mostly in the People’s Republic of China,” reported U.S. Legal professional Ismail Ramsey.

“By stealing Google’s trade secrets about its synthetic intelligence supercomputing techniques, Ding gave himself and the firms that he affiliated with in the PRC an unfair competitive benefit.”

Ding, who joined Google as a program engineer in 2019, has been accused of siphoning proprietary information and facts associated to the company’s supercomputing info middle infrastructure made use of for operating AI versions, the Cluster Management Technique (CMS) application for controlling the info centers, and the AI styles and purposes they supported.

The theft occurred from May 21, 2022, right until May possibly 2, 2023, to a individual Google Cloud account, the indictment alleged, including Ding secretly affiliated himself with two tech providers based mostly in China.

This involved 1 agency in which he was offered the place of chief technology officer sometime about June 2022 and one more organization launched by Ding himself by no later on than May well 30, 2023, acting as its main government officer.

“Ding’s business touted the progress of a application platform developed to accelerate machine mastering workloads, which include instruction huge AI models,” the DoJ mentioned.

“A doc relevant to Ding’s startup firm stated, ‘we have knowledge with Google’s 10-thousand-card computational power platform we just want to replicate and up grade it – and then further more produce a computational power platform suited to China’s nationwide problems.'”

But in an intriguing twist, Ding took methods to conceal the theft of trade insider secrets by purportedly copying the info from Google resource files into the Apple Notes application on his organization-presented MacBook and then changing the notes to PDF files before uploading them to their Google account.

Also, Ding allegedly permitted a different Google staff in December 2023 to use his Google-issued obtain badge to scan into the entrance of a Google constructing, providing the effect that he was doing the job from his U.S. Google business office when, in fact, he was in China. He resigned from Google on December 26, 2023.

Ding has been billed with 4 counts of theft of trade secrets and techniques. If convicted, he faces a greatest penalty of 10 years in prison and up to a $250,000 great for each and every depend.

The improvement arrives days just after the DoJ arrested and indicted David Franklin Slater, a civilian staff of the U.S. Air Force assigned to the U.S. Strategic Command (USSTRATCOM), of transmitting classified details on a overseas on line courting platform among February and April 2022.

The details bundled Countrywide Defense Information (NDI) pertaining to military services targets and Russian navy abilities relating to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. It can be said to have been sent to a co-conspirator, who claimed to be a female dwelling in Ukraine, via the courting website’s messaging attribute.

“Slater willfully, improperly, and unlawfully transmitted NDI classified as ‘SECRET,’ which he had explanation to believe that could be made use of to the injury of the United States or to the gain of a overseas country, on a foreign on line dating system to a human being not approved to obtain these details,” the DoJ said.

Slater, 63, faces up to 10 yrs in jail, three decades of supervised release, and a utmost financial penalty of $250,000 for each depend of conspiracy to transmit and the transmission of NDI. No information are recognized about the motives or the actual id of the personal posing as a Ukrainian female.

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