US fedral jury convicts ex-Google employee for stealing AI secrets for China

A federal jury in San Francisco has convicted a former Google software engineer of stealing sensitive artificial intelligence trade secrets for the benefit of China, marking the first-ever conviction on AI-related economic espionage charges, US officials said.

Linwei Ding, also known as Leon Ding, 38, was found guilty on seven



counts of economic espionage and seven counts of theft of trade secrets after an 11-day trial before US District Judge Vince Chhabria in the Northern District of California.

Prosecutors said Ding stole thousands of pages of confidential AI-related information from Google while secretly pursuing China-linked technology ventures.