Artificial intelligence (AI) secrets from Google's data centers were reportedly stolen by its former engineer, Leon Ding, also known as Linwei Ding. According to the BBC, the former engineer is detained and charged with four crimes in the state of California.
A statement from Deputy Attorney General Lisa Monaco reportedly claims that Ding had secretly worked for Chinese corporations hoping to gain an advantage in the race for artificial intelligence technology, and had stolen more than 500 confidential files containing trade secrets from Google.
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A photo taken on February 26, 2024 shows the logo of the Artificial Intelligence chat application on a smartphone screen (L) and and the letters AI on a laptop screen in Frankfurt am Main, western Germany.
The engineer was allegedly intending to launch his own business in China when he allegedly stole information regarding the company's cutting-edge technologies.
Tensor processing unit (TPU) processors made by Google are linked to a significant amount of the stolen data. TPU processors power several of Google's AI workloads, and when paired with Nvidia GPUs, they make it possible to train and run AI models like Gemini. The company has also made the chips accessible on partner websites like Hugging Face.
Software designs for Google's machine learning workloads in data centers, hardware, and software specifications for GPUs utilized in Google's data center, and designs for both the v4 and v6 TPU processors are among the allegedly stolen files.
Google Engineer and Chinese Tech CEO
According to the timetable, Ding worked as a software engineer for Google in 2019 and was involved with the company's supercomputing data centers, according to the indictment filed on Tuesday with a federal court in San Francisco. Ding had developed software to support the operation of artificial intelligence and machine learning apps for Google's customers.
He is said to have begun uploading files to a personal Google account from Google's network in May 2022. According to the accusation, these uploads continued intermittently for an entire year.
During this period, he reportedly spent several months in China working for Beijing Rongshu Lianzhi Technology, a start-up tech company. He was reportedly paid $14,800 a month to be the Chief Technology Officer of the company. Furthermore, he is purported to have established Shanghai Zhisuan Technology, a software enterprise that specializes in artificial intelligence and machine learning, and designated himself as its CEO.
US-China Tech War
The Disruptive Technology Strike Force, a one-year-old organization tasked with preventing hostile nation-states and authoritarian regimes from obtaining American technologies, conducted the Ding probe, according to the Justice Department.
The case comes amid a technical arms race between Washington and Beijing reminiscent of the Cold War. Officials from the Justice Department described the prosecution as a signal that the U.S. government will continue to be watchful against attempts to transfer advanced U.S. technologies to China illegally.
Artificial intelligence is seen by both the Chinese and American governments as a strategically important developing technology that can significantly increase economic output in non-military areas and provide vital skills to intelligence and military forces.
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