A former Google software engineer has been convicted of stealing the tech giant’s artificial intelligence trade secrets while working for Chinese tech companies.

Linwei Ding, a 38-year-old Chinese national, was hired by Google in May 2019 as part of a team tasked with developing its dedicated supercomputing data centres.

While Ding initially conducted his work responsibilities as expected, he was later found to have stolen more than 2,000 pages of confidential information containing AI trade secrets from Google’s network, according to the US Department of Justice (DOJ).

Between approximately May 2022 and April 2023, Ding exfiltrated these documents to his personal Google Cloud account.

Later in December 2023, just two weeks before quitting his role at Google, Ding downloaded the stolen trade secrets to his own personal computer and was indicted about three months later.

Following an 11-day trial which concluded in a US federal court last week, the former Google staffer was convicted on seven counts of economic espionage and seven counts of theft of trade secrets.

Ding faces a maximum sentence of 10 years in prison for each count of theft of trade secrets, alongside a maximum of 15 years for each for the economic espionage charges.

“We’re grateful to the jury for making sure justice was served today, sending a clear message that stealing trade secrets has serious consequences”, Lee-Anne Mulholland, vice president of regulatory affairs at Google, said in a statement provided to Information Age.

Engineer led a double life at Google

Ding worked at Google for some three years before being poached by a developing Chinese tech outfit in June 2022.

According to the DOJ, not only was the Chinese national in discussions for a chief technology officer role at that company, but by early 2023 he was in the process of founding his own machine-learning startup.

While working at Google and simultaneously acting as his new company’s chief executive, Ding promised potential investors he could build an AI supercomputer by appropriating Google’s existing technology.

In presentations to investors and employees of his company, Ding cited national policies which encouraged AI development in the People’s Republic of China (PRC) – and in late 2023, he applied for a government-sponsored “talent plan” in Shanghai which reportedly encouraged individuals to contribute to the nation’s economic and technological growth.

In his application for this plan, Ding said he hoped to “help China to have computing power infrastructure capabilities that are on par with the international level.”

Crucial chip data stolen

In February 2025, court documents revealed seven categories of trade secrets were stolen by Ding.

These included confidential information about Google’s custom-designed SmartNIC network interface cards, and, most notably, a range of hardware and software trade secrets surrounding Google’s AI products.

The pilfered trade secrets contained “detailed information” about the architecture behind Google’s Tensor Processing Unit (TPU) chips that the tech giant has used to train its flagship Gemini large language models and reduce its reliance on third-party chipmakers like Nvidia.

Information about Google’s own graphics processing units (GPUs) was also caught in Ding’s theft campaign, alongside details about software used to orchestrate “thousands of chips into a supercomputer” for AI training and workload execution, DOJ explained.

Roman Rozhavsky, assistant director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation’s (FBI) Counterintelligence and Espionage Division, said the case marked the first-ever conviction on AI-related economic espionage charges.

“In today’s high-stakes race to dominate the field of artificial intelligence, Linwei Ding betrayed both the US and his employer by stealing trade secrets about Google’s AI technology on behalf of China’s government,” said Rozhavsky.

Google has not been charged in relation to Ding’s espionage.