Ex-Google engineer found guilty of stealing AI secrets for China
Former Google software engineer Linwei Ding has been convicted of economic espionage and trade secret theft after a California jury found he stole over 1,200 confidential Google files to help two Chinese companies.
The verdict came quickly on January 29, 2026, after a 10- to 11-day trial.
How Ding pulled it off—and what happens next
Ding copied sensitive files—including details about Google's supercomputing data centers and custom AI chips—into his Apple Notes app, turned them into PDFs, and uploaded them to his personal cloud account beginning in May 2022.
He now faces up to 15 years in prison and a $5 million fine for each economic espionage count, and up to 10 years in prison and a $250,000 fine for each trade-secret count.
Google has worked closely with law enforcement throughout the investigation, and Ding's next court date is set for February 3, 2026.