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  Superseding Indictment Charges Chinese National in Relation to Alleged Plan to Steal Proprietary AI Technology
  
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  Note: View the superseding indictment here.
  
  A federal grand jury returned a superseding indictment today charging Linwei Ding, also called Leon Ding, 38, with 7 counts of financial espionage and seven counts of theft of trade secrets in connection with a supposed plan to steal from Google LLC (Google) proprietary details related to AI innovation.
  
  Ding was initially arraigned in March 2024 on four counts of theft of trade tricks. The superseding indictment returned today explains 7 classifications of trade secrets taken by Ding and charges Ding with seven counts of economic espionage and 7 counts of theft of trade secrets.
  
  According to the superseding indictment, Google hired Ding as a software engineer in 2019. Between around May 2022 and May 2023, Ding submitted more than 1,000 distinct files containing Google private details from Google’s network to his personal Google Cloud account, including the trade tricks alleged in the superseding indictment.
  
  While Ding was used by Google, he secretly affiliated himself with two People’s Republic of China (PRC)- based innovation companies. Around June 2022, Ding remained in discussions to be the Chief Technology Officer for an early-stage technology company based in the PRC. By May 2023, Ding had founded his own innovation company concentrated on AI and artificial intelligence in the PRC and was functioning as the company’s CEO.
  
  The superseding indictment declares that Ding meant to benefit the PRC government by taking trade tricks from Google. Ding presumably took innovation connecting to the hardware infrastructure and software application platform that allows Google’s supercomputing data center to train and serve large AI models. The trade tricks contain detailed details about the architecture and functionality of Google’s Tensor Processing Unit (TPU) chips and systems and Google’s Graphics Processing Unit (GPU) systems, the software application that enables the chips to communicate and execute tasks, and the software that orchestrates countless chips into a supercomputer efficient in training and carrying out cutting-edge AI work. The trade secrets also pertain to Google’s custom-designed SmartNIC, a type of network interface card utilized to improve Google’s GPU, high efficiency, and cloud networking items.
  
  As alleged, Ding distributed a PowerPoint presentation to staff members of his innovation business pointing out PRC national policies motivating the development of the domestic AI market. He also developed a PowerPoint presentation containing an application to a PRC talent program based in Shanghai. The superseding indictment explains how PRC-sponsored skill programs incentivize individuals participated in research and development outside the PRC to send that knowledge and research to the PRC in exchange for wages, townshipmarket.co.za research study funds, laboratory space, or other incentives. Ding’s application for the talent program specified that his business’s product “will help China to have computing power facilities abilities that are on par with the international level.”
  
  If founded guilty, Ding deals with an optimum charge of ten years in jail and up to a $250,000 fine for each trade-secret count and 15 years in jail and $5,000,000 fine for each economic-espionage count. A federal district court judge will identify any sentence after considering the U.S. Sentencing Guidelines and other statutory elements.
  
  The FBI is investigating the case.
  
  Assistant U.S. Attorneys Casey Boome and Molly K. Priedeman for the Northern District of California and Trial Attorneys Stephen Marzen and bbarlock.com Yifei Zheng of the National Security Division’s Counterintelligence and Export Control Section are prosecuting the case.
  
  Today’s action was coordinated through the Justice and Commerce Departments’ Disruptive Technology Strike Force. The Disruptive Technology Strike Force is an interagency police strike force co-led by the Departments of Justice and Commerce created to target illegal stars, protect supply chains, and avoid critical technology from being obtained by authoritarian regimes and hostile nation-states.
  
  A superseding indictment is merely a claims. All accuseds are presumed innocent till proven guilty beyond a reasonable doubt in a law court.