500 Secret AI Files and a Chinese Startup: In the Case of Former Google Engineer Linwei Ding | Today’s news
Former Google software engineer Linwei Ding was sentenced to nearly a year in prison on Tuesday after being convicted of stealing the tech giant’s trade secrets related to its artificial intelligence technology, Kqed.org, a San Francisco-based media organization, reported.
U.S. District Judge Vince Chhabria sentenced Ding to less than a year behind bars, describing his actions as a “systematic, brazen effort to steal Google’s assets.” During the hearing in San Francisco, Chhabria said, “He knew very well what he was doing. He was hurting people along the way.”
The conviction followed a jury verdict in January that found Ding, then 38, guilty of seven counts involving the theft of proprietary information related to Google’s AI operations. He was also convicted of economic espionage on charges that he intended to use stolen information to benefit China. However, Chhabria overturned the espionage conviction in August, ruling that the evidence was insufficient for a reasonable jury to reach a guilty verdict.
How did the case against Ding begin?
The prosecution’s case centered on Ding’s alleged removal of hundreds of confidential files from Google’s systems. In court, prosecutors said he transferred more than 500 confidential files from the Google network to his personal Google Cloud account over the course of about a year.
The files allegedly contained trade secrets related to Google’s hardware infrastructure and software used in supercomputing data centers to train large artificial intelligence models.
Prosecutors also presented evidence of Ding’s connections to technology companies in China that were working on artificial intelligence-related projects. They said he copied and took confidential information from Google with the intention of helping Chinese interests.
A few months after Ding began moving files to his personal cloud account, the Chinese technology company offered him an early-stage role as chief technology officer, prosecutors said.
Ding’s ties to Chinese AI businesses
Ding traveled to China and visited Rongshu Technology Company in late 2022. Prosecutors said he began attending investor meetings around December of that year.
In 2023, Ding founded his own technology company, Zhisuan, based in China, which designed to develop systems for training large artificial intelligence models.
In the Zhisuan document circulated by Ding in November 2023, his indictment states: “We have experience with Google’s computing power platform with ten thousand cards; we only need to replicate and upgrade it, and then further develop a computing power platform that will be suitable for China’s national conditions.”
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Later that year, Ding also signed up to a program backed by the Chinese government to attract tech talent to the country through funding and investment, according to court records.
What was Ding allegedly hiding from Google?
Prosecutors said Ding did not disclose his connection to Rongshu or Zhisuan to Google, the report said.
They also claimed that when he was in China to promote Zhisuan, Ding used his Google ID card several times for the internship. According to prosecutors, the purpose was to “give the impression that he was working from his office.”
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Ding moved to the US in 2010 to pursue a master’s degree and subsequently worked for several Silicon Valley technology companies before joining Google as a software engineer in 2019. In 2021, he became a lawful permanent resident of the USA.
Why was the conviction for espionage overturned?
Although Ding was originally convicted of both trade secrets and economic espionage, Chhabria overturned the espionage conviction in August.
In his order partially acquitting Ding, the judge wrote: “The evidence was insufficient for a rational jury to conclude beyond a reasonable doubt that Ding knew or intended during the time frame from May 2022 to April 2023 that his actions would benefit the Chinese government.”
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However, the trade secrets conviction remained in place and was the basis for Tuesday’s prison sentence.
What punishment did Ding receive?
Ding’s lawyers demanded a sentence of three months of house arrest. They argued that he should be allowed to remain the primary caregiver of his 8-year-old son and that the case had already caused significant professional, personal and financial damage.
“Mr. Ding will never again hold a position of trust in a technology company,” his defense team said in a sentencing memorandum. “His convictions and the publicity surrounding them blocked the career he went to school for, enjoyed and thrived in. Zhisuan is defunct and Mr. Ding faces deportation from the United States.”
The defense also argued that the extensive publicity surrounding the case and the resulting consequences for Ding was sufficient to deter others from committing similar crimes.
Chhabria rejected a custodial sentence, saying that a sentence of between zero and six months would not sufficiently reflect the seriousness of Ding’s behaviour.
“If you think about it in terms of the seriousness of his offense … whether you think about it in terms of general intimidation or specific deterrence – the idea of a non-custodial sentence is hard for me to swallow,” Chhabria said before the sentencing.
In addition to his prison term, Ding will serve two years of supervised release. He was also ordered to pay more than $189,000 (approx ₹1.80 crore) in restitution and $25,000 (approx ₹24 million) in order.
