Under 100 Words: A Compact Summary
Google engineer Linwei Ding is accused by the US Justice Department of stealing AI trade secrets for Chinese companies. Google states Ding acted independently, cooperating with law enforcement. If convicted, Ding could face up to 10 years in prison. The case highlights the Justice Department’s focus on AI technology violations. Ding allegedly transferred sensitive data to personal accounts, involving Google’s supercomputing data centers (Stealing AI Technology for Chinese).
- The US Justice Department has accused Linwei Ding, a 38-year-old Chinese software engineer employed by Alphabet Inc.’s Google, of stealing trade secrets related to artificial intelligence development from the company’s supercomputing data centers.
- Ding, a Chinese national residing in Newark, California, and hired by Google in 2019, faces four counts of trade secrets theft, according to a statement released by the Justice Department on Wednesday (Stealing AI Technology for Chinese).
- Attorney General Merrick Garland stated, “We allege the defendant stole artificial intelligence-related trade secrets from Google while secretly working for two companies based in China. We will fiercely protect sensitive technologies developed in America from falling into the hands of those who should not have them.”
- A Google spokesperson mentioned that Ding acted independently, and the company promptly referred the case to law enforcement upon discovering the issue.
- The spokesperson, José Castañeda, said, “We have strict safeguards to prevent the theft of our confidential commercial information and trade secrets. We are grateful to the FBI for helping protect our information and will continue cooperating with them closely.”
- According to the Justice Department, Ding, also known as Leon Ding, reportedly transferred sensitive information from Google’s network to his personal email and cloud accounts while covertly affiliating himself with two China-based companies in the AI industry.
- The Department alleges that Ding assisted in forming one of the unidentified companies and did not disclose his connection to either company to Google. However, the Justice Department does not claim that Ding provided the stolen data to either of these companies.
- This case represents the first significant enforcement action since Deputy Attorney General Lisa Monaco announced last month that the Justice Department’s disruptive technology strike force would prioritize violations related to the use or transfer of AI technology.
- Monaco emphasized the disruptive nature of AI during her comments at the University of Oxford (Stealing AI Technology for Chinese).
- The US Attorney’s office in San Francisco has recently prosecuted multiple cases involving intellectual property theft with ties to China, including allegations against three former Apple engineers accused of stealing trade secrets from the company’s autonomous driving project for employment with Chinese companies.
- Not all of the efforts from the US Attorney’s office have resulted in success (Stealing AI Technology for Chinese).
- In a recent development, a Chinese chipmaker, targeted in a rare economic espionage case, was acquitted of all charges last month, bringing an end to a five-year pursuit by prosecutors.
- Ding was apprehended on Wednesday in Newark. If convicted, he could face a maximum penalty of 10 years in prison and fines of up to $250,000 for each count (Stealing AI Technology for Chinese).
- The technology Ding is accused of stealing “involves the building blocks of Google’s advanced supercomputing data centers, designed to support machine learning workloads used in training and hosting large AI models,” as per the Justice Department’s statement (Stealing AI Technology for Chinese).
- During his employment at Google, Ding had access to confidential information concerning hardware, software, and the AI models and applications they supported. Some of this information is alleged to have been uploaded to personal accounts.
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