Ex-Google Engineer Indicted for Alleged Theft of AI Secrets for Chinese Firms

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Facts

  • The US Department of Justice (DOJ) has unsealed a four-count indictment against a former Google employee, alleging that Linwei (Leon) Ding stole artificial intelligence (AI) trade secrets for the benefit of two Chinese companies.1
  • The indictment claims that, from June 2022, Ding received emails from the CEO of Beijing Rongshu Lianzhi Technology offering a monthly salary of approximately $15K, before he founded Shanghai Zhisuan Technology in May 2023. Ding was hired as an AI software engineer by Google in 2019.2
  • Between May 2022 and 2023, Ding is alleged to have, without permission, uploaded over 500 confidential files from Google to his personal account, while also failing to inform the company of his additional employments.2
  • The indictment reveals Ding told a Google investigator in December 2023 that files had been uploaded as 'evidence of the work... he had conducted at Google,' and that he had 'no intention of leaving Google.' Ding signed an affidavit claiming he no longer had personal access to the information, before resigning later that month.2
  • The nature of the information stolen is described as features of Google's advanced supercomputing data centers. If found guilty, Ding will face up to 10 years in prison while seeing a maximum fine of $1M.1

Sources: 1United States Department of Justice and 2justice.gov.

Narratives

  • Anti-China narrative, as provided by Newsweek. Chinese tech theft is estimated to cost the US $500B a year, and America continues to allow Beijing to sap cutting-edge information from sectors such as AI with little deterrent. While Washington must continue to attract the world's brightest to work in America, the reality remains that the obligation to commit espionage is a staple of Chinese domestic law, and the current inability to combat this problem must be viewed as a national emergency.
  • Pro-China narrative, as provided by Global Times. Accusations of Chinese tech developments being the product of espionage and theft are both rooted in racism and ignorance of the US' own malicious global spy system. Chinese success is the product of Chinese sacrifice and hard work — to invent rumors of tech theft is to merely expose the West's anxiety over Beijing's continued growth.
  • Nerd narrative, as provided by metaculus.com. There is a 15% chance that China will be able to mass produce humanoid robots by the end of 2025, according to the Metaculus prediction community.