Former Google engineer indicted for allegedly stealing AI secrets and techniques whereas secretly working a startup in China

WTF?! There’s been one other case of a tech employee stealing commerce secrets and techniques from their employer and handing them over to China-based rivals. Former Google software program engineer Linwei Ding, aka Leon Ding, has been indicted by a federal grand jury for pilfering confidential AI tech whereas secretly working for Chinese language AI corporations. He even launched a startup in his dwelling nation with out Google realizing.

Ding, a nationwide of the Folks’s Republic of China residing in Newark, California, has been charged with 4 counts of theft of commerce secrets and techniques. The indictment states that he transferred confidential Google data from the corporate’s community to his private account whereas secretly working for 2 China-based corporations inside the AI trade.

Deputy Lawyer Normal Lisa Monaco stated that Ding is alleged to have stolen over 500 information containing AI commerce secrets and techniques from Google and supposed to move them on to his Chinese language employers who had been seeking to achieve a bonus within the AI race.

The know-how Ding allegedly stole was largely associated to Google’s tensor processing unit (TPU) chips which are optimized for AI computation. Prosecutors declare that he stole chip structure and software program design specs for TPU variations 4 and 6 on separate events.

Ding can also be accused of stealing {hardware}, software program, system administration, and efficiency specs for GPU chips deployed in Google’s supercomputing information facilities. The indictment provides that the information included software program design specs for Google CMS that managed machine studying workloads on TPU and GPU chips in Google’s supercomputer information facilities.

Ding is alleged to have transferred the information to a private Google Cloud account between Might 2022 and Might 2023. He allegedly did this by copying information from the Google supply information into the Apple Notes utility on his Google-issued MacBook laptop computer, then changing them from Apple Notes to PDFs to keep away from detection by Google’s information loss prevention techniques.

Prosecutors stated that Ding, with out Google’s data, launched his personal startup in China and had colleagues swipe his badge at Google’s workplaces to hide the actual fact he was overseas. As per The Verge, a Chinese language machine studying firm named Rongshu supplied to make him CTO lower than a month after he began stealing information from Google.

Ding resigned from Google in December 2023 and booked a one-way ticket to China after the corporate began questioning him about his suspicious uploads. He faces as much as ten years in jail and a $250,000 effective for every of his 4 counts.

Samsung, Tesla, and Apple are simply a few of the tech corporations which have had staff arrested for stealing commerce secrets and techniques and promoting them to Chinese language opponents previously.