A former Google engineer has been charged with stealing trade secrets to benefit two Chinese companies. The incident adds to a series of actions by U.S. authorities to prevent the leakage of sensitive technical information to China.
A federal jury in San Francisco indicted Linwei Ding, a 38-year-old Chinese national, on four counts of trade secret theft.
The indictment says the stolen trade secrets are critical to Google's AI capabilities and involve specialized hardware and software that powers the company's supercomputing centers. .
“Trade secrets include the architecture and functionality of GPU and TPU chips and systems, the software that allows the chips to communicate and perform tasks, and the integration of thousands of chips to build supercomputers that can run on the cutting edge. Contains detailed information about software that “contributes to the advancement of machine learning and AI technology,'' said a statement from the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California.
US struggles to limit intellectual property theft
Ding used a multi-step scheme to evade detection by uploading 500 files, most of which contained trade secrets, to the cloud. During his time at Google, Ding received $14,800 a month from the Chinese tech company, according to the indictment.
This follows a similar case in May 2023 in which a former Apple engineer was charged with five counts of attempting to steal technology for China, Russia, and Iran. The case focuses on technology related to autonomous driving systems, including self-driving cars, and the engineer allegedly fled to China after the theft.
In response to these security concerns, the Biden administration established the Disruptive Technology Strike Force in February 2023. The task force aims to prevent the transfer of advanced technology to countries such as China and Russia that could pose a threat to U.S. national security.
Significantly, Deputy Attorney General Lisa Monaco said last month that the strike force would focus on violations related to the use and transfer of AI technology, Bloomberg reported.
Intellectual property theft has become a key issue in the trade conflict between the United States and China, which has particularly intensified during President Donald Trump's term. A 2017 New York Times report estimated that such thefts could cost the United States as much as $600 billion a year, with most of that coming from China.
Block advanced technology
In addition to cracking down on IP theft, the U.S. government has tightened restrictions on exports of advanced technology to China, particularly affecting companies like Nvidia and AMD.
However, in August 2023, Chinese technology giant Huawei launched a new smartphone with an advanced in-house chip design that exceeds the technical standards that the United States was trying to enforce to limit China's technological advances.
In October 2023, the Department of Commerce's Bureau of Industry and Security issued updated rules to strengthen export controls for advanced semiconductors, related manufacturing equipment, and items used in supercomputing to address national security concerns. Introduced.
Separate reporting from Bloomberg also suggests that the U.S. government is actively pushing its allies, including the Netherlands, Germany, South Korea and Japan, to tighten controls on semiconductor technology exports to China.
Challenges for US technology companies
Big tech companies are being forced to change their business plans in response to U.S. regulations. For example, semiconductor companies such as Nvidia and AMD are designing lower-performance chips specifically for China that meet U.S. standards.
But even this is proving difficult, as AMD's latest China-only chips have been deemed too powerful to sell. The restrictions also risked forcing Nvidia to suspend operations and redesign its services for China, hurting its business and revenue in the region.
Some analysts are skeptical about the long-term effect of such export restrictions on China, saying they could inadvertently accelerate China's technological capabilities or encourage international companies to look for loopholes. It suggests that there is a sex.
