Former Google software engineer Linwei Ding was sentenced to nearly a year in prison on Tuesday after being convicted of stealing the tech giant’s trade secrets linked to its artificial intelligence technology, according to a report by Kqed.org, a media organisation based in San Francisco.
US District Judge Vince Chhabria sentenced Ding to just under a year behind bars and described his actions as a “systematic, brazen effort to steal Google’s property.” During the sentencing hearing in San Francisco, Chhabria said, “He knew very well what he was doing. He hurt people along the way.”
The sentencing followed a January jury verdict that found Ding, then 38, guilty on seven counts involving the theft of proprietary information connected to Google’s operations. He had also been convicted of economic espionage over allegations that he intended to use the stolen information to benefit China. However, Chhabria overturned the espionage conviction in August, ruling that the evidence was insufficient for a reasonable jury to reach a guilty verdict on that charge.
How did the case against Ding begin?
The prosecution’s case centred on Ding’s alleged removal of hundreds of confidential files from Google’s systems. At trial, prosecutors said he transferred more than 500 confidential files from Google’s network to his personal Google Cloud account over roughly a year.
The files allegedly contained trade secrets concerning Google’s hardware infrastructure and software used in supercomputing data centres for training large AI models.
Prosecutors also presented evidence about Ding’s connections with technology companies in China that were working on AI-related projects. They said he copied and took confidential information from Google with the intention of helping Chinese interests.
Several months after Ding started moving the files to his personal Cloud account, a China-based early-stage technology company offered him a chief technology officer role, prosecutors said.
Ding’s links to China-based AI ventures
Ding travelled to China and visited the technology company, Rongshu, in late 2022. Prosecutors said he began taking part in investor meetings around December that year.
In 2023, Ding established his own -based technology company, Zhisuan, which proposed developing systems to train large AI models.
A Zhisuan document circulated by Ding in November 2023 was quoted in his indictment as saying: “We have experience with Google’s ten-thousand-card computational power platform; we just need to replicate and upgrade it and then further develop a computational power platform suited to China’s national conditions.”
Later that year, Ding also applied to a Chinese government-backed programme designed to attract technology talent to the country through funding and investment, according to court records.
What did Ding allegedly hide from Google?
Prosecutors said Ding did not disclose his association with either Rongshu or Zhisuan to Google, the report noted.
They also alleged that while he was in China promoting Zhisuan, Ding had an intern use his identification card several times. According to prosecutors, the purpose was “to make it appear as though he was working from his office.”
Ding had moved to the US in 2010 to pursue a master’s degree and subsequently worked for several Silicon Valley technology companies before joining Google as a software engineer in 2019. He became a lawful permanent resident of the US in 2021.
Why was the espionage conviction overturned?
Although Ding was initially convicted on both the trade-secrets and economic espionage charges, Chhabria overturned the espionage conviction in August.
In his order partially acquitting Ding, the judge wrote, “The evidence was insufficient for a rational jury to conclude beyond a reasonable doubt that Ding knew or intended during the May 2022–April 2023 timeframe that his actions would benefit the Chinese government.”
The trade-secrets convictions, however, remained in place and formed the basis of Tuesday’s prison sentence.
What sentence did Ding receive?
Ding’s lawyers had sought a sentence of three months of home confinement. They argued that he should be allowed to remain the primary caregiver for his 8-year-old son and that the case had already caused significant professional, personal and financial damage.
“Mr. Ding will never again hold a position of trust at a technology company,” his defence team said in a sentencing memorandum. “His convictions and the publicity surrounding them have foreclosed the career he went to school for, enjoyed, and at which he thrived. Zhisuan is defunct, and Mr. Ding faces possible removal from the United States.”
The defence also argued that the extensive publicity surrounding the case and the resulting consequences for Ding were sufficient to deter others from committing similar offences.
Chhabria rejected a non-custodial sentence, saying a punishment of between zero and six months would not adequately reflect the seriousness of Ding’s conduct.
“If you think about it from the standpoint of the seriousness of his offense … whether you think about it from standpoint of general deterrence or specific deterrence — the idea of a noncustodial sentence is hard to swallow for me,” Chhabria stated before imposing the sentence.
Besides his prison term, Ding will serve two years of supervised release. He was also ordered to pay over $189,000 (approximately ₹1.80 crore) in restitution and a $25,000 (nearly ₹24 lakh) fine.
