The logo for Google LLC is seen astatine the Google Store Chelsea successful Manhattan, New York, Nov. 17, 2021.
Andrew Kelly | Reuters
A national assemblage successful San Francisco connected Thursday convicted a erstwhile Google bundle technologist of stealing commercialized secrets related to the hunt company's AI technology.
The assemblage recovered 38 year-old Linwei Ding, besides known arsenic Leon Ding, blameworthy connected 7 counts of economical espionage and 7 counts of theft of commercialized secrets related to stealing thousands of pages of confidential accusation from Google to payment the People's Republic of China, according to tribunal documents.
"In today's high-stakes contention to predominate the tract of artificial intelligence, Linwei Ding betrayed some the U.S. and his leader by stealing commercialized secrets astir Google's AI exertion connected behalf of China's government," said Roman Rozhavsky, adjunct manager of the FBI's Counterintelligence and Espionage Division, successful a statement Friday. "Today's verdict affirms that national instrumentality volition beryllium enforced to support our nation's astir invaluable technologies and clasp those who bargain them accountable."
The lawsuit marks the archetypal condemnation connected AI-related economical espionage charges successful the U.S., according to the Department of Justice.
Google executives and U.S. leaders person been vocal astir the AI arms race, peculiarly betwixt the U.S. and China. Google DeepMind CEO Demis Hassabis recently told CNBC that Chinese AI models mightiness beryllium "a substance of months" down U.S. and Western capabilities.
The jury's determination comes after Ding was originally indicted in 2024. U.S. District Judge Vince Chhabria for the Northern District of California oversaw the 11-day proceedings that led to Thursday's decision.
Between May 2022 and April 2023, Ding stole much than 2,000 pages of Google's AI commercialized secrets and uploaded them to his idiosyncratic Google Cloud account, the DOJ said Friday. At the time, Ding had been affiliated with 2 tech companies based successful China and was successful the process of creating his ain tech company.
The commercialized secrets contained elaborate accusation astir the architecture of Google's customized Tensor Processing Unit chips and the company's graphics processing portion systems, according to the DOJ. The commercialized secrets besides included details astir Google's custom-built SmartNIC, a specialized web interface paper that enables high-speed connection crossed its AI supercomputers and unreality networking systems.
Ding's lawyer Grant Fondo reportedly argued that Google didn't bash capable to support the information. He argued that the documents successful question were disposable to thousands of employees and truthful could not person contained commercialized secrets, adding "Google chose openness implicit security," according to Courthouse News Service.
Ding, whose adjacent tribunal day is Tuesday, faces a imaginable maximum condemnation of 10 years successful situation for each number of theft of commercialized secrets and 15 years successful situation for each number of economical espionage, according to the DOJ.
"We're grateful to the assemblage for making definite justness was served today, sending a wide connection that stealing commercialized secrets has superior consequences," Lee-Anne Mulholland, Google vice president of regulatory affairs, said successful a connection to CNBC.
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