Network access from China and side hustle as AI upstart CEO aroused suspicion

A former Google software engineer has been convicted of stealing AI hardware secrets from the company for the benefit of two China-based firms, one of which he founded. The second startup intended to use these secrets to market its technology to PRC-controlled organizations.

On Thursday, Linwei ("Leon") Ding, 38, was convicted on seven counts of economic espionage and seven counts of trade secret theft for stealing confidential information related to Google's Tensor Processing Units (TPUs), Graphics Processing Units (GPUs), and SmartNIC network interface cards.

"We're grateful to the jury for making sure justice was served today, sending a clear message that stealing trade secrets has serious consequences," said Lee-Anne Mulholland, VP of regulatory affairs at Google, in a statement provided to The Register.

According to the second superseding indictment [PDF] filed in September 2025, Ding began working for Google on May 13, 2019. He was responsible for developing ...