US: Ex-Google engineer convicted of stealing AI secrets to benefit China

The verdict was delivered after an 11-day trial before U.S. District Judge Vince Chhabria.

The convicted individual, Linwei Ding, also known as Leon Ding, 38, was originally indicted in March 2024. A superseding indictment filed in February 2025 detailed seven categories of trade secrets he allegedly stole and formally charged him with seven counts each of economic espionage and theft of trade secrets.

“Silicon Valley is at the forefront of artificial intelligence innovation, pioneering transformative work that drives economic growth and strengthens our national security,” said United States Attorney Craig H. Missakian. “The jury delivered a clear message today that the theft of this valuable technology will not go unpunished. We will vigorously protect American intellectual capital from foreign interests that seek to gain an unfair competitive advantage while putting our national security at risk.”

FBI Special Agent in Charge Sanjay Virmani said the conviction underscores the bureau’s commitment to safeguarding American innovation. “The theft and misuse of advanced artificial intelligence technology for the benefit of the People’s Republic of China threatens our technological edge and economic competitiveness,” he said.

Virmani added that the FBI’s San Francisco division, which serves Silicon Valley, works closely with leading technology companies to protect sensitive U.S. technologies. “This case demonstrates the strength of collaboration between the FBI and the private sector, including companies like Google, whose partnership is critical to protecting innovation. Today’s verdict affirms that federal law will be enforced to hold accountable those who steal our nation’s most valuable technologies.”

According to evidence presented at trial, between May 2022 and April 2023, Ding — while employed at Google — stole more than 2,000 pages of confidential documents containing AI trade secrets from Google’s internal network and uploaded them to his personal Google Cloud account.

Prosecutors said Ding secretly affiliated himself with two China-based technology companies during his tenure at Google. Around June 2022, he entered discussions to serve as Chief Technology Officer for an early-stage technology firm in China. By early 2023, he was in the process of founding his own AI and machine learning startup in China and was acting as its CEO.

In presentations to potential investors, Ding allegedly claimed he could build an AI supercomputer by copying and modifying Google’s technology. In December 2023, less than two weeks before resigning from Google, he downloaded the stolen trade secrets onto his personal computer.

The jury found that Ding stole proprietary information related to the hardware infrastructure and software platforms that power Google’s supercomputing data centers used to train and deploy large AI models.

The stolen trade secrets included detailed information about the architecture and functionality of Google’s custom Tensor Processing Unit (TPU) chips and systems, its Graphics Processing Unit (GPU) systems, and the software that enables these chips to communicate and execute tasks. The materials also covered software used to coordinate thousands of chips into AI supercomputers capable of handling advanced AI workloads.

Additionally, the trade secrets involved Google’s custom-designed SmartNIC technology, a specialized network interface card that facilitates high-speed communication within Google’s AI supercomputers and cloud networking products.

Evidence presented at trial showed that Ding referenced China’s national policies prioritizing AI development and innovation in investor presentations. In late 2023, he applied for a government-sponsored “talent plan” in Shanghai, stating that he intended to “help China to have computing power infrastructure capabilities that are on par with the international level.”

Prosecutors said Ding sought to benefit two entities controlled by the Chinese government by assisting in the development of an AI supercomputer and collaborating on custom machine learning chip research and development.

Ding is scheduled to appear for a status conference on February 3, 2026.

He faces a maximum sentence of 10 years in prison for each count of theft of trade secrets under 18 U.S.C. § 1832 and 15 years for each count of economic espionage under 18 U.S.C. § 1831. Any sentence will be determined by the court after considering the U.S. Sentencing Guidelines and federal sentencing statutes.