Linwei Ding, a former software engineer at Google, has been charged with stealing trade AI secrets while secretly working for two Chinese companies. The Chinese national, who is also known as Leon Ding, allegedly stole over 500 confidential files and was indicted in California on four charges. He is accused of stealing information from the infrastructure of Google’s supercomputing data centers, which are used to host large AI models. Ding, who, per the indictment, joined Google in 2019, began uploading information from Google’s network to a personal account in 2022. It also states that he worked for Beijing Rongshu Lianzhi Technology & was offered $14,800 a month to be the company’s Chief Technology Officer. Ding is also alleged to have started his own tech firm called Shanghai Zhisuan Technology, of which he made himself CEO. He reportedly applied to a China-based organization to help develop his business at an investor conference, per the indictment. Upon his return to the US, Ding allegedly booked a one-way ticket to Beijing before he resigned from his post at Google on December 26. Google learned about his actions at the conference and searched his activity history, where they came across the unauthorized uploads. Google has “strict safeguards to prevent the theft of confidential commercial information & trade secrets,” said spokesperson José Castaneda. "The Justice Department will not tolerate the theft of artificial intelligence and other advanced technologies that could put our national security at risk," said US Attorney General, Merrick Garland. If convicted, Ding faces up to 10 years in prison and $250,000 in fines on each count.