A jury convicted him of stealing Google's AI secrets and economic espionage. A federal judge just overturned the espionage convictions, ruling that the evidence supported the theft but not the government's claim that Ding intended to benefit the Chinese government.
U.S. District Judge Vince Chhabria acquitted former Google engineer Linwei Ding of all seven economic espionage counts against him Thursday, even as Ding's separate convictions on seven trade secret theft counts remain intact.
What Ding Actually Did
Ding, hired by Google in 2019 to help build its supercomputing data centers, began copying internal documents to his company laptop's notes app in spring 2022, converting them to PDFs and uploading them to a personal cloud account.
By the time he stopped, the government said, Ding had transferred 1,255 documents totaling roughly 14,000 pages. In December 2023, as Google's internal investigation closed in on him, he downloaded the files from his cloud account to a personal laptop.
Prosecutors argued Ding did this to benefit Zhisuan Technology, a company he was forming in China, and ultimately the Chinese government itself.
The Legal Distinction That Mattered
Chhabria didn't dispute that Ding stole the documents intending to benefit himself and his company. He ruled the trial evidence supported that conclusion easily.
What he rejected was the leap from there to state-sponsored espionage. The government pointed to Ding's later claims about relationships with Chinese government entities in November 2023 and applying to a Chinese government talent program that December, both well after the actual thefts.
"It becomes too speculative to rely solely on conduct that occurred months later to prove a defendant's intent at the earlier point in time," Chhabria wrote in his 18-page order.
The judge was also unconvinced by the government's portrayal of Ding as a sophisticated operator with real understanding of China's tech industry and government apparatus. He described Ding's actual conduct as "ad hoc, disorganized and feeble."
Why the Timing Argument Won
Prosecutors tried a fallback theory at sentencing: even without intent during the original uploads, Ding may have developed espionage intent by the time he downloaded the files in December 2023. Chhabria rejected that too, on a more basic procedural ground.
The government never presented that theory to the jury in the first place. "The government can't save a legally flawed conviction by identifying a new theory it failed to articulate at trial," Chhabria wrote.
Because this is an acquittal rather than a mistrial, double jeopardy protections mean prosecutors can't retry Ding on the espionage counts at all.
What Comes Next
Grant Fondo of Goodwin Procter, Ding's attorney, called the ruling exactly what his team asked for.
"We are gratified that the court granted our motion and acquitted Mr. Ding as to each of the economic espionage charges," Fondo said.
The trade secret theft convictions still carry real weight. Ding faces up to 10 years in prison and $250,000 in fines on each of the seven counts when he's sentenced September 1.
What This Means for Miami
This case draws a legal line Miami's growing AI and tech sector should understand clearly: stealing proprietary technology for personal gain and stealing it on behalf of a foreign government are different crimes with very different evidentiary bars, even when the same conduct triggers both charges.
For Miami companies navigating the same U.S.-China AI competition already reshaping chip access and open-weight model adoption, the ruling is a reminder that foreign-government intent cannot simply be inferred from a defendant's later relationships or ambitions.
Prosecutors still have to connect the evidence to the defendant's intent at the time of the charged conduct. Employers building AI teams with international ties should keep that distinction in mind when evaluating their own trade secret protection and security and compliance practices.