The Washington Post-Former Google AI engineer charged with trade secret theft for China firm
March 6, 2024 3 min 547 words
这则报道揭示了一起涉及高科技领域的敏感事件，突显了中美之间技术冷战的紧张局势。前谷歌AI工程师丁林伟被指控窃取公司先进技术，计划在中国创办自己的公司。此案传递了美国政府对非法转移先进技术至中国的零容忍立场，特别在华盛顿与北京之间的技术军备竞赛中。司法部官员称该案是一种信号，强调美国将保持警惕，防止对人工智能等先进技术的盗窃，以维护国家安全。这也突显了中美两国对人工智能等战略新兴技术的重视，以及它们在经济和军事领域的关键作用。丁林伟若被判有罪，将面临严重刑罚，这表明美国对于保护技术安全的决心。报道中强调的对抗态势，让我们深思中美科技合作和竞争的未来走向。
2024-03-06T21:13:58.633Z
The Justice Department on Wednesday announced the arrest of a former Google AI engineer, alleging he stole information about the company’s advanced technologies with the intention of setting up his own company in China.
Leon Ding, or Linwei Ding, a 38-year-old Chinese national, was detained in Newark, Calif., and charged with four counts of trade secret theft.
Justice Department officials called the case a signal that the U.S. government will remain vigilant against attempts to illicitly transfer advanced U.S. technologies to China, amid a Cold War-esque technological arms race between Washington and Beijing.
“The Justice Department will not tolerate the theft of artificial intelligence and other advanced technologies that could put our national security at risk,” Attorney General Merrick Garland said in a statement.
If convicted, Ding faces a maximum penalty of 10 years in prison and up to $1 million in fines.
According to an indictment filed March 5 in a court in San Francisco, Ding was hired by Google as a software engineer in 2019 and worked on the company’s supercomputing data centers. He worked on developing software that aided the operation of machine learning and AI applications for Google’s clients, the indictment said.
Prosecutors said that Ding began uploading confidential Google information to a personal Google Cloud account in May 2022 and had uploaded more than 500 files containing Google confidential information by May 2023.
The trade secret theft counts involve chip architecture and software design specifications for “tensor processing units” and “graphics processing units,” chips that are the building blocks of supercomputing centers.
While still employed at Google, Ding became the chief technology officer of a China-based AI company, Beijing Rongshu Lianzhi Technology Co., and founded a second China-based company, Shanghai Zhisuan Technology Co., without informing Google of his positions at either company, the indictment said.
The FBI searched Ding’s residence on Jan. 6, seizing his electronic devices and other evidence.
“Let today’s announcement serve as further warning — those who would transfer sensitive U.S. technology to China risk finding themselves on the wrong end of a criminal indictment,” said Assistant Secretary Matthew Axelrod, of the Commerce Department’s Office for Export Enforcement, in a statement.
The Justice Department said the investigation into Ding was carried out by the Justice and Commerce Departments’ Disruptive Technology Strike Force, a year-old group aimed at securing U.S. technologies from being acquired by “authoritarian regimes and hostile nation-states.”
Both the U.S. and Chinese governments have identified artificial intelligence as a strategic emerging technology with broad potential to boost economic output in civilian sectors, while also providing key capabilities for militaries and intelligence agencies. President Biden issued an AI executive order last year aimed at keeping the U.S. ahead in AI against countries like China.
Ding, Beijing Rongshu Lianzhi Technology and Shanghai Zhisuan Technology could not be immediately reached for comment.
Google spokesperson José Castañeda said Google had referred the case to federal officials. “We have strict safeguards to prevent the theft of our confidential commercial information and trade secrets. After an investigation, we found that this employee stole numerous documents, and we quickly referred the case to law enforcement,” he said.