Ex-Google Engineer Charged With Espionage for China

Linwei Ding, a former Google engineer, is facing charges of economic espionage and theft of trade secrets for allegedly stealing technology related to Google's AI projects to benefit China's AI industry. Indicted on seven counts each, Ding is accused of uploading over 1,000 confidential files to his personal cloud account, which included details on Google's TPU and GPU systems. He allegedly founded a startup in China in 2023 to offer AI infrastructure services to Chinese universities and state agencies and applied for a government-backed talent program. Prosecutors claim Ding intended to aid the Chinese government by exploiting Google's trade secrets for his company's benefit. If convicted, Ding could face up to 15 years for each espionage charge and 10 years for each theft charge. Google, having acted swiftly upon discovering the misconduct, stated that Ding acted alone and the company maintains strict safeguards against such violations.