In an era where AI technology is among the most valuable intellectual property a company can own, the case of a former Google software engineer shows why businesses need to take insider risk seriously. Linwei Ding was first charged in March 2024 with theft of trade secrets relating to Google’s artificial intelligence (AI) infrastructure. The case is a reminder that the threat from within can be as damaging as an external attack.
Updated October 2026 to reflect the outcome of the case.
What the Court Record Shows
Ding joined Google as a software engineer in 2019, working on the supercomputing data centres that Google uses to train and serve large AI models. That role gave him access to sensitive infrastructure developments.
He was originally indicted on four counts of theft of trade secrets. A superseding indictment in 2025 charged him with seven counts of economic espionage and seven counts of theft of trade secrets. On 29 January 2026, a jury in the Northern District of California convicted him on all fourteen counts. According to the US Department of Justice, between May 2022 and April 2023 he took more than 2,000 pages of confidential information about the hardware and software that run Google’s AI supercomputing infrastructure, uploading it to a personal Google Cloud account, while also working with two China-based technology companies, one of which he founded (US Department of Justice).
In August 2026, US District Judge Vince Chhabria set aside the seven economic espionage convictions, finding the evidence insufficient to show that Ding intended or knew his conduct would benefit the Chinese government. The seven trade secret theft convictions stand. On 1 September 2026, the judge sentenced Ding to 12 months less one day in prison and two years of supervised release, and ordered him to pay more than $198,000 in restitution to Google and a $2,500 fine. Ding’s lawyer said he would appeal (Courthouse News Service). As at early October 2026, the outcome of any appeal is not yet known.
A Wider Lesson for Every Organisation
The case attracted attention because of the technology involved and the wider strategic competition in AI. But the lesson for most organisations is simpler. Valuable intellectual property is handled every day by trusted people with legitimate access, and the activity that matters can look like ordinary work: opening documents, saving files, using cloud services.
Companies working in AI and other advanced technologies, and any business whose value rests on its intellectual property, should have an insider risk program that fits their size and risk. That means knowing where their most sensitive data lives, who can reach it, and when it moves somewhere it shouldn’t, such as a personal account.
Why Long-Running Data Movement Is Hard to Spot
According to the Department of Justice, the conduct in this case took place over about a year. That is a useful prompt for any organisation to ask how long it would take them to notice sensitive data moving gradually to a personal account. Activity spread over months, by someone whose job involves the data, rarely trips a single rule. It shows up only when activity is looked at in context: is this data, in this volume, going to this destination, normal for this person’s role?
Practical questions worth asking:
- Do you know where your crown-jewel data is? Intellectual property spreads across shared drives, collaboration sites and mailboxes. You can’t protect what you haven’t found and classified.
- Who can reach it? People with elevated or broad access deserve particular care, along with regular reviews of whether that access is still needed.
- Would you see it leave? Uploads to personal cloud storage, forwarding to personal email and pasting into external AI tools are common routes. Most such events are innocent, so alerts need to be reviewed by people who understand the context before anyone acts on them.
- What happens when someone leaves? Resignations and role changes are moments to review access and recent data movement, applied consistently to everyone.
In Summary
The Ding case shows that even technically sophisticated organisations can find it difficult to spot sensitive data leaving through trusted insiders over a long period. Protecting intellectual property depends on knowing where it is, controlling who can reach it, and having proportionate, fair visibility into how it moves. As the technology and geopolitical landscape continues to evolve, so must the way organisations manage insider risk.
CEO & Co-Founder, ShadowSight
Who is Christopher McNaughton
Chris is a proficient problem solver with a strategic aptitude for anticipating and addressing potential business issues, particularly in areas such as Insider Threat, Data Governance, Digital Forensics, Workplace Investigations, and Cyber Security. He thrives on turning intricate challenges into opportunities for increased efficiency, offering pragmatic solutions derived from a practical and realistic approach.
Starting his career as a law enforcement Detective, Chris transitioned to multinational organisations where he specialised and excelled in Cyber Security, proving his authority in the field. Even under demanding circumstances, his commitment to delivering exceptional results remains unwavering, underpinned by his extraordinary ability to understand both cyber and business problems swiftly, along with a deep emphasis on active listening.