The Department of Justice (DoJ) announced on Thursday that a former Google engineer has been found guilty in the United States of stealing thousands of the company's private documents in order to launch a startup in China This article explores google engineer guilty. . A federal jury found 38-year-old Linwei Ding (also known as Leon Ding) guilty on seven counts of economic espionage and seven counts of trade secret theft for stealing more than 2,000 documents that contained the tech giant's trade secrets pertaining to artificial intelligence (AI) technology for the People's Republic of China (PRC).

"Silicon Valley is at the forefront of artificial intelligence innovation, pioneering transformative work that drives economic growth and strengthens our national security," U.S. Attorney Craig H. Missakian stated.

"The evidence at trial also showed that Ding intended to assist with the development of an AI supercomputer and collaborate on the research and development of custom machine learning chips in order to benefit two entities controlled by the Chinese government." On February 3, 2026, Ding is expected to attend a status conference. He faces a maximum sentence of 10 years in prison for each count of theft of trade secrets and 15 years in prison for each economic espionage count.