Superseding Indictment Charges Chinese National in Relation to Alleged Plan to Steal Proprietary AI Technology

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A federal grand jury returned a superseding indictment today charging Linwei Ding, also called Leon Ding, 38, with 7 counts of financial espionage and 7 counts of theft of trade tricks in connection with an alleged strategy to take from Google LLC (Google) proprietary details associated with AI technology.

Ding was at first arraigned in March 2024 on four counts of theft of trade secrets. The superseding indictment returned today explains seven categories of trade tricks stolen by Ding and charges Ding with seven counts of economic espionage and 7 counts of theft of trade tricks.

According to the superseding indictment, Google worked with Ding as a software application engineer in 2019. Between around May 2022 and May 2023, Ding submitted more than 1,000 distinct files containing Google confidential details from Google's network to his personal Google Cloud account, consisting of the trade tricks alleged in the superseding indictment.

While Ding was utilized by Google, he secretly associated himself with two People's Republic of China (PRC)- based technology companies. Around June 2022, Ding remained in discussions to be the Chief Technology Officer for oke.zone an early-stage innovation company based in the PRC. By May 2023, Ding had actually founded his own technology company focused on AI and artificial intelligence in the PRC and was functioning as the business's CEO.

The superseding indictment declares that Ding planned to benefit the PRC government by taking trade tricks from Google. Ding supposedly stole technology associating with the hardware infrastructure and software application platform that permits Google's supercomputing data center to train and serve big AI designs. The trade secrets contain detailed details about the architecture and performance of Google's Tensor Processing Unit (TPU) chips and systems and Google's Graphics Processing Unit (GPU) systems, the software application that enables the chips to communicate and perform tasks, and the software application that orchestrates countless chips into a supercomputer capable of training and performing innovative AI work. The trade secrets also pertain to Google's custom-made SmartNIC, a kind of network interface card utilized to boost Google's GPU, high efficiency, and cloud networking products.

As declared, Ding circulated a PowerPoint presentation to workers of his innovation business mentioning PRC national policies encouraging the advancement of the domestic AI industry. He also produced a PowerPoint discussion containing an application to a PRC skill program based in Shanghai. The superseding indictment explains how PRC-sponsored talent programs incentivize individuals engaged in research and advancement outside the PRC to send that understanding and research study to the PRC in exchange for incomes, research study funds, lab space, or other rewards. Ding's application for the talent program stated that his business's product "will help China to have computing power facilities abilities that are on par with the worldwide level."

If founded guilty, Ding deals with a maximum charge of ten years in jail and up to 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 elements.

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 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 developed to target illegal stars, protect supply chains, and avoid important technology from being obtained by authoritarian routines and hostile nation-states.

A superseding indictment is merely a claims. All accuseds are presumed innocent until tested guilty beyond an affordable doubt in a law court.