Washington, March 6 (EFE).- The US Department of Justice charged a former Google employee this Wednesday with stealing technology from the multinational while secretly collaborating with two Chinese companies in the field of artificial intelligence.
According to the indictment filed by the Justice Department, Linwei Ding, 38, a Chinese national and resident of California, transferred trade secrets and other confidential information from Google's network to his personal account while cooperating with the two China-based companies.
The accused was arrested in Newark (California) on Wednesday morning.
„The Department of Justice will not tolerate the theft of artificial intelligence and other advanced technologies that could endanger our national security,” U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland said in a statement.
The charges received for stealing trade secrets reflect the lengths to which Chinese companies are willing to go to „steal American inventions,” according to FBI Director Christopher Wray.
According to court documents, the technology Ding allegedly stole includes key components of Google's advanced supercomputing data centers, which are designed to support machine learning workloads used to train and host artificial intelligence models.
Google has now hired the accused as a software engineer in 2019. His responsibilities included developing the software used in those data centers, which made it easy for him to access classified information.
Beginning in May 2022, according to the indictment, Ding began storing trade secrets from the Google network by copying them to his private cloud. By May 2023 I have already saved more than 500 files.
If convicted, he faces a maximum sentence of 10 years in prison and a fine of up to $250,000 on his four counts.
In addition to being in contact with the two Chinese companies, Ding set up his own technology company in the field of artificial intelligence and traveled to China to attend investor conferences, the indictment said.