A former software worker at Google has been charged in the US with stealing trade secrets about artificial intelligence (AI) while working for two Chinese companies behind their backs.
They are Linwei Ding, who is also known as Leon Ding. They were charged with four crimes in California and were taken on Wednesday.
It is said that the Chinese person stole more than 500 private files.
For each count, he could spend up to 10 years in jail and pay a fine of $250,000.
Local media said they could not find Mr. Ding's lawyer to speak on the case.
He is accused of taking data about the foundation of Google's supercomputing data centers, which are used to store and train big AI models.
The accusation says that Mr. Ding was hired by Google in 2019 and that one of his jobs was to make this software.
It is said that he started putting data saved on Google's network into a personal Google account in May 2022. The charges say that these uploads happened on and off for a year.
At the same time, he is said to have worked for a few months in China for Beijing Rongshu Lianzhi Technology, a new tech business that hired him. According to the charges, he was offered $14,800 (£11,620) a month to be the Chief Technology Officer of the company.
People also say that he started his own tech company called Shanghai Zhisuan Technology and made himself the CEO. The company focused on AI and machine learning.
The BBC has reached out to Rongshu, but Zhisuan could not be reached right away for comment.
The government says Mr. Ding never told Google that he worked for two companies.
According to the indictment, he asked a group in China to help him grow this business and then showed it at an investor conference in China in November 2023.
The next month, Google caught him trying to send more files to his computer while he was in China. But Mr. Ding told Google's investigator that it was to show that he worked for the tech giant.
Mr. Ding is said to have booked a one-way trip from San Francisco to Beijing before he quit on December 26, but Google didn't know about it.
After a few days, Google became suspicious again after hearing about what he did at the conference and blocked his access, looking through his activity records to find the uploaded files that were not authorized.
José Castañeda, a spokesman for Google, said that the company has "strict safeguards to prevent the theft of our confidential commercial information and trade secrets." He also said that the company quickly told the police when it found evidence of alleged wrongdoing.
In a statement released Wednesday, US Attorney General Merrick Garland said that Linwei Ding was trying to get rich by working secretly for companies that were "seeking an edge in the AI technology race."
"The Justice Department will not tolerate the theft of artificial intelligence and other advanced technologies that could put our national security at risk," Garland said.
Christopher Wray, the director of the FBI, said that Mr. Ding's acts "are the latest example of the lengths" that Chinese companies will go to "to steal American innovation."
A nasty trade war has been going on between the US and China for the past few years, with both trying to get ahead of the other.
Because of the disagreement, both countries have put tariffs on goods worth hundreds of billions of dollars from the other.
Under the Biden administration, trade ties have gotten worse, with new barriers to trade being put up by both sides, such as limits on the export of computer chips.