The U.S. Department of Justice announced on Wednesday (3/6) the arrest of 38-year-old Linwei Ding in Newark, New Jersey. Ding is accused of stealing AI trade secrets from Google during his employment to aid in the establishment of an AI company in China. He faces four charges related to the theft of trade secrets, carrying a maximum sentence of 10 years in prison and a $1 million fine.
Ding joined Google as a software engineer in 2019, responsible for developing software deployed in Google’s supercomputing data centers. He had access to confidential information at Google, including hardware infrastructure, software platforms, and AI models and applications supported by these architectures.
According to the indictment, Ding began quietly copying confidential business information stored on Google’s network to his personal Google Cloud account in May 2022. By May 2023, he had uploaded over 500 files containing confidential information. His method involved initially storing these files in Apple Notes on the MacBook laptop provided by Google, converting them to PDF, and then uploading them to his Google Cloud account to evade detection by Google.
In June 2022, Ding was appointed as the Chief Technology Officer by Rongshu Lianzhi, a Beijing-based startup in China. One of Rongshu Lianzhi’s business areas is the development of machine learning acceleration software. Ding received a monthly salary of 100,000 RMB and a 20% stake in the company.
The following year, Ding founded Shanghai Zhisuan Technology in China, primarily focusing on developing a content management system for accelerating machine learning workloads, including large-scale AI models executed on supercomputing chips. In a WeChat group for Zhisuan, Ding mentioned that they had already experienced the Google computing platform composed of tens of thousands of cards and that they only needed to replicate and upgrade it to develop a computing platform suitable for China.
Google discovered Ding’s actions in December 2023 when he was attempting to upload more files from Google’s network to his other Google Drive account while he was in China. Upon being discovered, Ding initially assured investigators that he had no intention of leaving Google. However, in the same month, he submitted his resignation to his supervisor and booked a one-way flight ticket from the U.S. to Beijing, scheduled for January of this year.
During this period, even though he continued working at Google, Ding frequently resided in China. For example, he stayed in China from late October 2022 to the end of March the following year. He also asked colleagues to use his employee card to enter Google’s office, creating the illusion that he was still working in the U.S.
Ding faces four charges related to the theft of Google’s trade secrets, encompassing the architecture and functionality of GPU and TPU chips and systems, software enabling communication and task execution on the chips, and software capable of coordinating thousands of chips on supercomputers. If convicted on all charges, he could face a maximum sentence of 10 years in prison and a $1 million fine.