On Wednesday, the US Dept of Justice revealed an indictment that names Linwei Ding, aka Leon Ding, and states that during his time at Google his job involved the “development of software that allowed GPUs to function efficiently for machine learning, AI applications, or other purposes required by Google or Google Cloud clients.”
The documents “detailed information about the architecture and functionality of GPU and TPU chips and systems, the software that allows the chips to communicate and execute tasks, and the software that orchestrates thousands of chips into a supercomputer capable of executing at the cutting edge of machine learning and AI technology,” according to the Justice Dept.
Google was not aware of Ding’s work at Rongshu nor Zhisuan, nor that he was in China – the accused allegedly allowed another Googler to use his employee badge at office entrances to create the appearance he was still in the USA. He told Google he wasn’t planning to leave, agreed to delete the docs, and signed an affidavit affirming he had done so, according to prosecutors.