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Former software engineer at Google A man has been charged with stealing artificial intelligence technology from a company while he was secretly working with two companies based in China, the Justice Department said Wednesday.
Linwei Ding, a Chinese national, was arrested in Newark, California, on four counts of theft of federal trade secrets, each punishable by up to 10 years in prison.
The case against Deng was announced at an American Bar Association conference in San Francisco by Attorney General Merrick Garland, who along with other law enforcement leaders has repeatedly warned of the threat of Chinese economic espionage and of the national security concerns posed by developments in synthetic technology. Intelligence.
“Today’s charges are the latest illustration of the lengths to which affiliates of companies based in the People’s Republic of China are willing to go to steal American innovation,” FBI Director Christopher Wray said in a statement. “The theft of innovative technology and trade secrets from American companies could cost jobs and have devastating economic and national security consequences.”
Justice Department leaders in recent weeks have sounded the alarm about how foreign adversaries are harnessing artificial intelligence technologies to negatively impact the United States.
Deputy Attorney General Lisa Monaco said in a speech last month that the department's multi-agency disruptive technology strike force would put AI enforcement at the top of its list of priorities, and Wray told business leaders at an event last week that AI and other emerging technologies have made it easier for adversaries to attempt Interference in the American political process.
An indictment unsealed Wednesday in the Northern District of California alleges that Ding, who was hired by Google in 2019 and had access to confidential information about the company's supercomputing data centers, began uploading hundreds of files to a personal Google Cloud account two years ago.
Prosecutors say that within weeks of the theft beginning, Ding was offered a position as chief technology officer at an early-stage technology company in China that promoted its use of artificial intelligence technology. The indictment says Deng traveled to China, participated in investor meetings for the company and sought to raise capital for it.
He separately founded and served as CEO of a China-based startup that aspired to train “large-scale AI models powered by supercomputing chips,” the indictment said.
Prosecutors say Deng did not disclose any affiliation with Google.
He resigned from the company on December 26. Three days later, Google officials learned that he had made his pitch as CEO of a Chinese company at an investor conference in Beijing. The indictment says officials also reviewed surveillance that showed another employee scanned Deng's badge at the building where he worked to make it appear as if Deng was there during times he was actually in China.
It was not immediately clear whether Deng, 38, had a lawyer who could speak on his behalf.
