A former Google engineer was arrested in California on Wednesday for stealing greater than 500 recordsdata containing synthetic intelligence commerce secrets and techniques from the corporate and utilizing the knowledge to learn rival tech firms in China.
In an indictment that was unsealed in a federal California court docket, prosecutors accused Linwei Ding, a 38-year-old Chinese language nationwide who began working at Google in 2019, of importing commerce secrets and techniques from his Google-issued laptop computer to private cloud storage accounts. The paperwork that Ding stole concerned “constructing blocks” of Google’s AI infrastructure, in response to the indictment. He uploaded them to his private accounts over a interval of 1 12 months from Could 2022 to Could 2023.
Ding was arrested in Newark, California, and charged with 4 counts of theft of commerce secrets and techniques. If convicted, he might be sentenced as much as 10 years in jail and a high quality of as much as $250,000 for every depend.
“We now have strict safeguards to stop the theft of our confidential business info and commerce secrets and techniques,” Google spokesperson José Castañeda advised Engadget. “After an investigation, we discovered that this worker stole quite a few paperwork, and we rapidly referred the case to legislation enforcement. We’re grateful to the FBI for serving to shield our info and can proceed cooperating with them intently.”
The event comes at a time of heightened tensions between the US and China over the explosion of synthetic intelligence. Final 12 months, the Biden administration banned the export of superior AI chips designed by American firms like NVIDIA to China to cease the nation from utilizing AI to strengthen its navy. “As we speak’s costs are the most recent illustration of the lengths associates of firms based mostly within the Folks’s Republic of China are wiling to go to steal American innovation,” mentioned FBI director Christopher Wray in a press release. “The theft of modern expertise and commerce secrets and techniques from American firms can value jobs and have devastating financial and nationwide safety penalties.”
The indictment revealed all types of particulars concerning the nature of the crime. Ding allegedly copied info from Google’s recordsdata into Apple Notes on his laptop computer first, after which transformed them to PDF recordsdata that he uploaded to his private Google account to evade detection by Google’s information loss prevention methods. He additionally gave his Google badge to a different Google worker in California to make it appear to be he was working from Google’s workplaces within the state whereas truly working for rival firms in China. Prosecutors mentioned that Ding helped in elevating capital for one of many Chinese language firms he labored with as its chief expertise officer. Final 12 months, he additionally based one other AI firm in China and served as its CEO.
This isn’t the primary time that the US has arrested a Chinese language nationwide for stealing commerce secrets and techniques from American firms. In the previous few years, the US lawyer’s workplace in San Francisco has charged three former Apple staff for stealing commerce secrets and techniques associated to the Apple Automotive, a challenge the corporate lately canceled, and siphoning them off to firms in China. Final month, a kind of engineers was sentenced to 6 months in jail and requested to pay almost $150,000 in fines.
