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 referred to as Leon Ding, 38, with 7 counts of economic espionage and seven counts of theft of trade tricks in connection with an alleged strategy to steal from Google LLC (Google) proprietary details connected to AI innovation.
Ding was at first arraigned in March 2024 on 4 counts of theft of trade tricks. The superseding indictment returned today explains 7 classifications of trade secrets stolen by Ding and charges Ding with 7 counts of economic espionage and 7 counts of theft of trade secrets.
According to the superseding indictment, Google employed Ding as a software engineer in 2019. Between around May 2022 and May 2023, Ding uploaded more than 1,000 unique files containing Google private details from Google's network to his individual Google Cloud account, including the trade secrets alleged in the superseding indictment.
While Ding was used by Google, he secretly affiliated himself with two People's Republic of China (PRC)- based innovation companies. Around June 2022, Ding remained in conversations to be the Chief Technology Officer for an early-stage innovation company based in the PRC. By May 2023, Ding had founded his own innovation company focused on AI and artificial intelligence in the PRC and was serving as the company's CEO.
The superseding indictment declares that Ding planned to benefit the PRC government by taking trade secrets from Google. Ding supposedly stole technology associating with the hardware facilities and software platform that allows Google's supercomputing data center to train and serve large AI models. The trade tricks 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 permits the chips to communicate and execute tasks, and the software that manages thousands of chips into a supercomputer efficient in training and executing innovative AI work. The trade secrets also pertain to Google's custom-designed SmartNIC, a type of network interface card utilized to improve Google's GPU, high efficiency, and cloud networking items.
As alleged, Ding distributed a PowerPoint discussion to staff members of his innovation business pointing out PRC nationwide policies motivating the development of the domestic AI industry. He also developed a PowerPoint discussion containing an application to a PRC talent program based in Shanghai. The superseding indictment explains how PRC-sponsored talent people taken part in research study and development outside the PRC to transmit that knowledge and research study to the PRC in exchange for salaries, research study funds, laboratory space, or other incentives. Ding's application for the talent program mentioned that his company's product "will assist China to have calculating power facilities capabilities that are on par with the international level."
If founded guilty, Ding deals with a maximum penalty of 10 years in jail and approximately a $250,000 fine for each trade-secret count and kenpoguy.com 15 years in jail and $5,000,000 fine for each economic-espionage count. A federal district court judge will figure out any sentence after considering the U.S. Sentencing Guidelines and other statutory aspects.
The FBI is examining the case.
Assistant U.S. Attorneys Casey Boome and Molly K. Priedeman for the Northern District of California and Trial Attorneys Stephen Marzen and 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 police strike force co-led by the Departments of Justice and Commerce created to target illegal actors, protect supply chains, and avoid important innovation from being obtained by authoritarian routines and hostile nation-states.
A superseding indictment is simply a claims. All defendants are presumed innocent until tested guilty beyond an affordable doubt in a law court.