A U.S. federal jury in San Francisco has convicted Linwei Ding (also known as Leon Ding), a former Google software engineer, on multiple criminal charges for unlawfully taking proprietary artificial intelligence (AI) information from Google and attempting to benefit companies tied to the People’s Republic of China.

• Ding, 38 years old, was found guilty on 14 counts:
  • 7 counts of economic espionage
  • 7 counts of theft of trade secrets
    Prosecutors describe this as the first U.S. conviction tied directly to AI-related economic espionage.

Details of the Theft

According to the Department of Justice and court evidence:

• Ding stole thousands of pages of confidential documents related to Google’s AI infrastructure and supercomputing technologies.
• The stolen information included technical details about hardware and software systems used to train and deploy large AI models, such as Google’s custom chip designs and networking technologies.
• The theft occurred between May 2022 and April 2023, while he was still employed at Google.
• Prosecutors say he uploaded the sensitive data to his personal cloud account and was allegedly affiliated with two Chinese technology firms, including one he helped found while still on Google’s payroll.

Legal and Security Significance

• Each economic espionage charge carries up to 15 years in prison, and each trade secret count carries up to 10 years.
• The case is being treated as a major national security issue, highlighting efforts by U.S. authorities to protect critical technological advances amid global competition in AI.
• Ding has been released pending sentencing, with a court hearing scheduled for early February 2026.