February 2, 2026 A former Google software engineer has been convicted of stealing sensitive artificial intelligence hardware secrets from the company and using them to support two China-based startups, including one he founded, according to U.S. court records.
A federal jury on Thursday found Linwei Ding, also known as Leon Ding, guilty on seven counts of economic espionage and seven counts of trade secret theft. Prosecutors said Ding stole confidential information related to Google’s Tensor Processing Units (TPUs), Graphics Processing Units (GPUs) and SmartNIC networking technology.
Ding, 38, joined Google in May 2019 and worked on software designed to improve GPU efficiency for machine learning workloads used internally and on Google Cloud. In that role, he had access to information Google classified as confidential. According to prosecutors, he began exfiltrating data in May 2022, uploading more than 1,000 files containing trade secrets to a personal cloud account.
As the indictment states, “Ding exfiltrated these files by copying data from the Google source files into the Apple Notes application on his Google-issued MacBook laptop. Ding then converted the Apple Notes into PDF files and uploaded them from the Google network into [his personal Google Cloud account]. This method helped Ding evade immediate detection by Google.”
Court filings show that in June 2022, Ding received job offers from executives at Beijing Rongshu Lianzhi Technology, a China-based company focused on machine learning acceleration, including an offer to serve as chief technology officer. Later that year, Ding traveled to China, where he participated in investor meetings. By May 2023, he had founded Shanghai Zhisuan Technology and became its chief executive.
According to the indictment, internal documents circulated by Ding described plans to “replicate and upgrade” large-scale computing platforms similar to those used at Google and to market the resulting technology to entities controlled by the People’s Republic of China. These entities included government agencies and academic institutions.
Google became aware of Ding’s activities in late 2023 after he uploaded additional files to another personal account while in China. In December, Ding assured company investigators that he had not retained proprietary information and signed a self-deletion affidavit without disclosing his earlier data transfers. Days later, Google discovered that Ding had presented publicly in Beijing as the CEO of Zhisuan. The company then suspended his network access, remotely locked his work devices, and reviewed internal security logs and surveillance footage.
Federal agents executed a search warrant in January 2024, and a grand jury returned an indictment in March. Ding’s defense attorney sought dismissal of the charges, arguing prosecutors failed to prove that the stolen information was shared with or intended to benefit the Chinese government. U.S. District Judge Vince Chhabria rejected that motion, ruling that the evidence was sufficient for trial.
The US Department of Justice said trial evidence showed that Ding intended to benefit two entities controlled by the Chinese government by aiding the development of AI supercomputing systems and custom machine learning chips.
The jury unanimously convicted Ding on all counts. He faces a maximum sentence of up to 10 years in prison for each count of trade secret theft and up to 15 years for each count of economic espionage, subject to federal sentencing guidelines. Court filings do not state whether the stolen information remains in the possession of foreign entities.
