Former Google software engineer convicted of AI espionage, trade secret theft

A former Google software engineer, Linwei Ding, also known as Leon Ding, was found guilty by a federal jury in San Francisco of espionage and theft of trade secrets in a groundbreaking case related to AI.

After an 11-day trial, the jury convicted Ding on seven counts of economic espionage and seven counts of theft of trade secrets, which included stealing thousands of pages of Google trade secrets to benefit China.

“In today’s competitive landscape of artificial intelligence, Linwei Ding betrayed the US and his employer by unlawfully obtaining trade secrets about Google’s AI technology for the Chinese government,” said Roman Rozhavsky, assistant director of the FBI’s espionage unit, in a statement on Friday.