Mar 07, 2024 11:48:00

A Chinese person working at Google is arrested and prosecuted on suspicion of stealing AI-related trade secrets and passing it on to a Chinese company

Former Google employee Linwei Ding was indicted on charges of trade secret theft for stealing information related to AI technology from Google and passing it on to a Chinese company.

Office of Public Affairs | Chinese National Residence in California Arrested for Theft of Artificial Intelligence-Related Trade Secrets from Google | United States Department of Justice

https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/chinese-national-residing-california-arrested-theft-artificial-intelligence-related-trade

Ding is a Chinese national living in California who joined Google as a software engineer in 2019 and worked in supercomputing and data center software development. As part of his job duties, Ding was allowed to access Google's confidential information related to hardware infrastructure, AI models, etc., but between May 21, 2022 and May 2, 2023, he It seems that the company began copying confidential information into personal Google accounts and secretly passing it on to Chinese companies.

Furthermore, Ding had established his own technology company without telling Google by May 30, 2023 at the latest, and apparently served as the company's CEO and developed software for AI models. In addition, Ding was also said to have held the position of chief technology officer (CTO) of a start-up company based in China.

The information Ding allegedly stole pertains to components of Google's advanced supercomputing data centers, including those designed to support training and hosting large-scale AI models. It seems that it is.

When stealing the information, Ding allegedly ``copied the data to

Notes , a memo app on a company-issued MacBook, converted the Notes to a PDF file, and uploaded it from Google's network to another account to prevent Google from losing data.'' It is suspected that he was attempting a cover-up to evade detection by the system. In addition to this, he handed his employee ID to another Google employee and had him scan it at the office entrance, making it appear that he was working in the United States even though he was actually in China.

Ding has been charged with four counts of trade secret theft and, if convicted, could face up to 10 years in prison and a fine of up to $250,000. That's what he said. 'We will not tolerate the theft of technology that could endanger our national security,' said U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland. I will protect you.”