Former Google engineer accused of stealing AI trade secrets has espionage charge dismissed by judge

A former Google engineer accused of stealing AI trade secrets won a major legal victory Thursday when a federal judge dismissed the espionage charge against him.

Judge dismisses economic espionage charge

U.S. District Judge Vince Chhabra ruled that prosecutors failed to provide sufficient evidence that the engineer, Linwei Ding, knew or intended that his actions would benefit the Chinese government — a required element for the economic espionage charge, according to Reuters.

However, Chhabra said the evidence supports Ding's conviction on seven counts of theft of trade secrets.

Ding was convicted in January following an 11-day trial.

Ding still faces trade secret theft charges

The ruling overturned the seven economic espionage counts against Ding, each carrying a maximum sentence of 15 years in prison and a $5 million fine.

The seven trade secret theft counts remain in place, each carrying a maximum of 10 years in prison and a $250,000 fine. He is scheduled to be sentenced on September 1.

Prosecutors alleged Ding stole thousands of confidential documents from Google, including information related to the company's AI data center technology.

His lawyers sought acquittal after the three-week trial, arguing prosecutors failed to prove the charges beyond a reasonable doubt.

The Justice Department and Google did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

Google AI secrets at center of case

Prosecutors said Ding joined Google in May 2019 and began stealing confidential information about three years later while being recruited by an early-stage Chinese tech company.

The stolen materials allegedly included detailed information about Google's hardware infrastructure and software platforms used to train large AI models.

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