Google engineer charged with stealing AI trade secrets

Linwei Ding, a former software engineer at Google, has been charged for allegedly stealing trade secrets from the company, while working with two companies based in China, a federal grand jury said.

Linwei – a Chinese national – was taken into custody in Newark, California, on four counts of federal trade secret theft.

Deputy Attorney General Lisa Monaco said that the 38-year-old “stole from Google over 500 confidential files containing AI trade secrets”.

According to the Verge, much of the stolen data allegedly revolves around Google’s tensor processing unit (TPU) chips.

The list of alleged stolen files includes software designs for both the v4 and v6 TPU chips, hardware and software specifications for GPUs used in Google’s data center, and designs for Google’s machine learning workloads in data centers.

FBI Director Christopher Wray said: “Today’s charges are the latest illustration of the lengths affiliates of companies based in the People’s Republic of China are willing to go to steal American innovation.”

Google spokesman Jose Castaneda said that had identified that the employee had stolen “numerous documents” and referred the matter to law enforcement.

“We have strict safeguards to prevent the theft of our confidential commercial information and trade secrets,” he said adding that after “investigation, the company had quickly referred the case to law enforcement.”

“We found that this employee stole numerous documents, and we are grateful to the FBI for helping protect our information and will continue cooperating with them closely,” he added.

A lawyer listed as Ding’s defense attorney had no comment Wednesday evening.