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A former Google engineer has been found guilty by a US federal jury of economic espionage and theft of confidential artificial intelligence (AI) trade secrets, in a case the FBI says highlights growing efforts to steal American intellectual property for foreign governments.
The FBI said a jury in San Francisco convicted Linwei Ding, also known as Leon Ding, on seven counts of economic espionage and seven counts of theft of trade secrets. Ding, 38, was accused of stealing sensitive AI-related information from Google and sharing it with Chinese technology firms.
According to prosecutors, Ding unlawfully accessed and downloaded more than 2,000 pages of confidential documents from Google’s internal systems between May 2022 and April 2023. The material contained proprietary AI technologies considered critical to the company’s competitive edge.
Investigators said Ding uploaded the stolen data to his personal cloud account while still employed at Google. In December 2023, shortly before resigning, he allegedly transferred the trade secrets to his personal computer.
The US Department of Justice said Ding was simultaneously in discussions to become chief technology officer of a Chinese AI startup and was also founding his own AI and machine learning company in China, where he claimed he could replicate Google’s AI systems.
US Attorney Craig Missakian said the verdict sent a strong message that theft of advanced AI technology would not be tolerated. The Federal Bureau of Investigation has repeatedly warned that AI espionage poses serious risks to US economic and national security.
Google welcomed the verdict, stating it reinforced that stealing trade secrets carries severe consequences.
Ding faces up to 10 years in prison for each trade secret theft count and up to 15 years for each economic espionage count. Sentencing will be scheduled at a later date.
1 February 2026
26 January 2026