Superseding Indictment Charges Chinese National In Relation To Alleged Plan To Steal Proprietary AI Technology
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Superseding Indictment Charges Chinese National in Relation to Alleged Plan to Steal Proprietary AI Technology
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Note: View the superseding indictment here.
A federal grand jury returned a superseding indictment today charging Linwei Ding, likewise called Leon Ding, 38, with seven counts of financial espionage and 7 counts of theft of trade secrets in connection with an alleged plan to take from Google LLC (Google) exclusive details related to AI technology.
Ding was initially arraigned in March 2024 on 4 counts of theft of trade secrets. The superseding indictment returned today explains 7 categories of trade secrets stolen by Ding and charges Ding with 7 counts of financial espionage and seven counts of theft of trade tricks.
According to the superseding indictment, Google employed Ding as a software application engineer in 2019. Between around May 2022 and May 2023, Ding published more than 1,000 unique files containing Google personal details from Google's network to his personal Google Cloud account, including the trade secrets alleged in the superseding indictment.
While Ding was used by Google, he covertly associated himself with two People's Republic of China (PRC)- based technology companies. Around June 2022, Ding remained in conversations to be the Chief Technology Officer for bphomesteading.com an early-stage technology business based in the PRC. By May 2023, Ding had established his own innovation company concentrated on AI and artificial intelligence in the PRC and was functioning as the business's CEO.
The superseding indictment declares that Ding intended to benefit the PRC federal government by taking trade tricks from Google. Ding supposedly stole innovation associating with the hardware facilities and software application platform that allows Google's supercomputing information center to train and serve large AI models. The trade secrets contain detailed details about the architecture and functionality of Google's Tensor Processing Unit (TPU) chips and systems and Google's Graphics Processing Unit (GPU) systems, the software that enables the chips to interact and perform tasks, and the software that orchestrates countless chips into a supercomputer capable of training and executing advanced AI work. The trade secrets also pertain to Google's custom-made SmartNIC, a type of network interface card utilized to improve Google's GPU, high performance, and cloud networking items.
As alleged, a PowerPoint discussion to staff members of his innovation company pointing out PRC nationwide policies motivating the development of the domestic AI market. He likewise created a PowerPoint discussion containing an application to a PRC talent program based in Shanghai. The superseding indictment explains how PRC-sponsored talent programs incentivize people taken part in research study and advancement outside the PRC to transmit that knowledge and research to the PRC in exchange for wages, research study funds, lab area, or other rewards. Ding's application for the talent program specified that his business's product "will assist China to have computing power infrastructure capabilities that are on par with the international level."
If convicted, Ding faces a maximum charge of ten years in jail and approximately a $250,000 fine for each trade-secret count and 15 years in jail and $5,000,000 fine for each economic-espionage count. A federal district court judge will identify any sentence after thinking about the U.S. Sentencing Guidelines and other statutory aspects.
The FBI is investigating the case.
Assistant U.S. Attorneys Casey Boome and Molly K. Priedeman for the Northern District of California and Trial Attorneys Stephen Marzen and smfsimple.com Yifei Zheng of the National Security Division's Counterintelligence and Export Control Section are prosecuting the case.
Today's action was coordinated through the Justice and Commerce Departments' Disruptive Technology Strike Force. The Disruptive Technology Strike Force is an interagency law enforcement strike force co-led by the Departments of Justice and Commerce designed to target illegal stars, safeguard supply chains, and avoid crucial technology from being obtained by authoritarian routines and hostile nation-states.
A superseding indictment is simply a claims. All defendants are presumed innocent up until proven guilty beyond an affordable doubt in a law court.
