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SAN FRANCISCO (CN) — A former Google employee who is accused of stealing proprietary information on Google’s artificial intelligence technology pleaded not guilty in a San Francisco courtroom Tuesday.
Linwei Ding, also known as Leon Ding, entered the courtroom out of custody, alongside his lawyer, Grant Fondo. Through his attorney, Ding pleaded not guilty to seven counts of federal trade secret theft and seven counts of economic espionage. He walked out smiling.
Ding is accused of stealing confidential information from Google, which hired him in 2019 as a software engineer to help develop its supercomputing data centers.
The federal government claims that Ding started to transfer files in May 2022 from Google’s network to a personal cloud account, uploading more than 1,000 files containing confidential information over a year. The information included data that Google used to train large AI models, according to his indictment.
Prosecutors also say Ding was secretly affiliated with two China-based technology companies, and in June 2022 received several emails from the CEO of an early-stage technology company indicating that Ding was taking on the role of chief technology officer. He traveled to China on Oct. 29, 2022, and was there participating in investor meetings to raise capital for the company until March 25, 2023, officials say.
Additionally, officials claim Ding founded his own technology company around May 2023, which proposed the development of a software platform designed to accelerate machine learning workloads, such as training large AI models powered by supercomputer chips.
Ding was arrested in March 2024 and charged with four counts of theft of trade secrets.
Earlier this year in February, prosecutors filed a superseding indictment with additional charges against Ding, including seven counts of theft of trade secrets and seven counts of economic espionage. A second superseding indictment earlier this month provided a wider date range of Ding’s purported actions — approximately from May 21, 2022, to Jan. 13, 2024. The government is also seeking criminal forfeiture to recover the files that Ding is accused of taking.
In June, U.S. District Judge Vince Chhabria rejected Ding’s motion to dismiss the case under the argument that he couldn’t be charged under the “espionage” statute because no foreign government actually sponsored or coordinated the trade secret theft. Ding also argued that economic espionage requires that he actually disclose those secrets, which he argues he never was able to do.
A couple weeks later, Chhabria granted Ding’s motion to suppress his statements given to authorities, ruling that the officers who questioned Ding violated his Miranda rights. But the Barack Obama appointee also determined that Ding willingly gave passwords to officers and that evidence gained from his electronic devices can reach a jury.
Attorneys for both parties declined to comment. The hearing was presided over by U.S. Magistrate Judge Alex Tse.
Ding’s trial is set to begin Jan. 12, 2026.
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