JAKARTA - A former Google software engineer, Linwei Ding, was found guilty by a federal jury in the United States of stealing trade secrets related to artificial intelligence (AI) for the benefit of a Chinese technology company.
Ding, a 38-year-old Chinese national also known as Leon Ding, was found guilty of seven counts of economic espionage and seven counts of theft of confidential information belonging to Google. The verdict was handed down after an 11-day trial in a San Francisco federal court, coordinated by the US Department of Justice.
Prosecutors said Ding stole thousands of pages of data related to hardware and software infrastructure for AI supercomputers, which are key to Google's competitive edge in the development of advanced data centers. The action was taken while Ding was secretly working for two technology companies in China.
This case highlights the increasing tensions between the United States and China in the strategic technology sector, particularly artificial intelligence and semiconductors. Ding is known to have joined Google in 2019 and began transferring company data in 2022.
During the trial, it was revealed that Ding copied more than 2,000 pages of Google internal documents containing technical specifications for training advanced AI models. He transferred the data to a personal account and hid his activities on the company's system, while maintaining a secret relationship with companies in China.
Google detected the suspicious activity and then cooperated with federal authorities in the investigation.
Ding is scheduled to be sentenced on February 3, 2026. Each economic espionage charge is punishable by a maximum of 15 years in prison and a fine of up to 5 million US dollars, while charges of trade secret theft can be sentenced to up to 10 years in prison and fines of hundreds of thousands of dollars per charge.
Initially, Ding was charged in March 2024 with four counts. The charges were expanded to 14 in February 2025 after prosecutors found additional evidence, including plans to establish a start-up company in China using stolen data.
The stolen documents include custom chip designs and supercomputing data center systems that Google developed to train large language models and reduce reliance on external chip suppliers such as Nvidia. Prosecutors assess that the transfer of such technology could potentially jeopardize US technological leadership in the fields of cloud computing and AI.
This case is part of the US government's efforts through the Disruptive Technology Strike Force, a cross-agency task force formed in 2023 to crack down on the illegal transfer of strategic technology.
Ding's defense team argued that some of the information taken was in the public domain. However, the jury rejected the defense after hearing testimony from experts and Google regarding the confidential nature and strategic value of the company's internal documents.
The ruling is seen as a stern warning to the technology sector regarding the threat from insiders (insider threats) and strengthens US law enforcement against economic espionage and theft of trade secrets in the era of global technology competition.
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