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A federal jury in San Francisco has found a former Google software engineer guilty of economic espionage and stealing artificial intelligence trade secrets, marking the first US conviction tied directly to AI technology theft.

The verdict came after an 11-day trial and centers on claims that the engineer took sensitive Google data to benefit Chinese companies.

The jury ruled Thursday that Linwei Ding, also known as Leon Ding, committed seven counts of economic espionage and seven counts of theft of trade secrets.

Prosecutors said Ding stole thousands of pages of confidential Google documents while working at the company.

Authorities say the information was taken to help China gain an edge in the fast-moving AI race.

"In today's high-stakes race to dominate the field of artificial intelligence, Linwei Ding betrayed both the US and his employer," said Roman Rozhavsky, assistant director of the FBI's espionage unit, NY Post reported.

He added that the stolen data involved Google's advanced AI technology.

According to the Justice Department, Ding worked at Google from 2019 and began taking files between May 2022 and April 2023.

He uploaded more than 2,000 pages of secret material to his personal Google Cloud account.

Less than two weeks before leaving Google in December 2023, he also downloaded the files onto his personal computer, court records show.

Ex-Google Engineer Worked With Chinese Tech Firms

Prosecutors said Ding secretly worked with two Chinese technology firms during this time. He was also in talks to become a chief technology officer for a China-based company and was planning his own startup.

In messages to potential investors, Ding claimed he could build an AI supercomputer using the stolen information, according to the Justice Department.

The stolen documents included details about Google's Tensor Processing Unit chips and its SmartNIC network card.

Officials said this technology helps train large AI models and gives Google an advantage over rivals like Amazon and Microsoft.

"This case involved some of the most advanced AI technology in the world at a critical moment in AI development," said Assistant Attorney General John Eisenberg.

According to SCMP, Ding now faces serious penalties. Each economic espionage charge carries a possible 15-year prison sentence, while each trade secrets charge can lead to up to 10 years behind bars.

Fines could also reach millions of dollars. A status conference is scheduled for February 3.

Ding's attorney argued that Google failed to properly protect its information, saying the documents should not count as trade secrets. The jury rejected that claim.

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