By SCM REPORTER I 3 February 2026
A ROGUE Google engineer has been found guilty of a “calculated breach of trust” after stealing thousands of pages of secret AI tech to help China build a supercomputer.
Linwei ‘Leon’ Ding, 38, was convicted yesterday of 14 counts of economic espionage and theft of trade secrets following a high-stakes trial in San Francisco.
The tech whiz—who enjoyed “privileged access” to Google’s inner sanctum—surreptitiously siphoned off over 2,000 pages of confidential files while secretly working for Chinese firms.
National Security Risk
Federal prosecutors revealed that while Ding was still on the Google payroll, he was secretly acting as the CEO of his own AI start-up in China.
In a brazen bid for investment, he told potential backers he could build a powerhouse supercomputer by “copying and modifying” Google’s world-leading technology.
The jury heard how Ding targeted the “crown jewels” of Silicon Valley, including:
Top-secret chip designs (TPUs and GPUs) used to train massive AI models.
Software “blueprints” that allow thousands of chips to work together as a supercomputer.
Advanced networking tech designed to make AI systems run at lightning speeds.
‘Talent’ Traitor
The court heard Ding even applied for a Chinese government-sponsored “talent plan” in Shanghai, boasting that he would help China match international computing power.
FBI Assistant Director Roman Rozhavsky slammed the betrayal, saying: “In today’s high-stakes race to dominate AI, Linwei Ding betrayed both the U.S. and his employer.”
Assistant Attorney General John A. Eisenberg added: “His duplicity put technological leadership and competitiveness at risk.”
Ding now faces a mammoth prison sentence. Under U.S. law, each count of economic espionage carries up to 15 years, while the theft charges carry 10 years apiece. He is due back in court today for a status conference.
The Global AI Arms Race
This case marks the first-ever conviction on AI-related economic espionage charges, signaling a new “Cold War” in the tech sector.
What was stolen? Ding took the blueprints for Google’s Tensor Processing Units (TPUs)—custom chips that are the “brains” behind modern AI like Gemini and ChatGPT-style models.
The China Connection: China has made “AI Dominance” a national priority by 2030.
To achieve this, the U.S. government alleges Beijing uses “talent plans” to recruit Western-trained engineers to bring sensitive IP back to the PRC.
The Investigation: The FBI worked directly with Google to track the data breaches, which occurred between May 2022 and April 2023.
Ding was eventually caught after downloading the final batch of stolen files to his personal laptop just days before resigning.
