A Chinese citizen who recently quit his job as a software engineer for Google in California has been charged with trying to transfer artificial intelligence technology to a Beijing-based company that paid him secretly, according to a federal indictment unsealed on Wednesday.

根據週三公布的一份聯邦起訴書，一名最近辭去在加州的谷歌軟體工程師工作的中國公民被指控試圖將人工智慧技術轉移給一家位於北京的公司，而這家公司祕密向他支付報酬。

Prosecutors accused Linwei Ding, who was part of the team that designs and maintains Google’s vast A.I. supercomputer data system, of stealing information about the “architecture and functionality” of the system, and of pilfering software used to “orchestrate” supercomputers “at the cutting edge of machine learning and A.I. technology.”

被指控的丁林葳是谷歌龐大的人工智慧超級計算機數據系統的設計和維護團隊成員，檢察官指控他竊取了該系統在「架構和功能」方面的信息，以及用於「協調」那些「處於機器學習和人工智慧技術前沿」的超級計算機的軟體。

From May 2022 to May 2023, Mr. Ding, also known as Leon, uploaded 500 files, many containing trade secrets, from his Google-issued laptop to the cloud by using a multistep scheme that allowed him to “evade immediate detection,” according to the U.S. attorney’s office for the Northern District of California.

據美國加利福尼亞州北區檢察官辦公室稱，從2022年5月到2023年5月，丁林葳（英文名Leon）通過一個使他能夠「躲避即時偵查」的多步驟計劃，將500個文件從谷歌給他使用的筆記型電腦上傳到了雲端，其中許多文件包含商業機密。

Mr. Ding was arrested on Wednesday morning at his home in Newark, Calif., not far from Google’s sprawling main campus in Mountain View, officials said.

官員表示，丁林葳於週三上午在位於加州紐瓦克的家中被捕，該地距離谷歌位於山景城的大型主園區不遠。

Starting in June 2022, Mr. Ding was paid $14,800 per month — plus a bonus and company stock — by a China-based technology company, without telling his supervisors at Google, according to the indictment. He is also accused of working with another company in China.

起訴書稱，從2022年6月開始，丁林葳每月從一家中國科技公司領取10萬多人民幣的報酬，外加獎金和公司股票，但他沒有將這些情況告知他在谷歌的上級。他還被指控與另一家中國公司合作。

Mr. Ding openly sought funding for a new A.I. start-up company he had incorporated at an investor conference in Beijing in November, boasting that “we have experience with Google’s 10,000-card computational power platform; we just need to replicate and upgrade it,” prosecutors said in the indictment, which was unsealed in San Francisco federal court.

檢察官在舊金山聯邦法院公布的起訴書中稱，在去年11月於北京舉行的一次投資者會議上，丁林葳公開為他註冊成立的一家新的人工智慧創業公司尋求資金，並吹噓說「我們擁有谷歌萬卡計算能力平台的經驗，我們只需要複製和升級它」。

“The Justice Department will not tolerate the theft of artificial intelligence and other advanced technologies that could put our national security at risk,” said Attorney General Merrick B. Garland, who announced the indictment during an appearance at an American Bar Association conference in San Francisco on Wednesday afternoon.

「司法部不會容忍可能危及我們國家安全的人工智慧和其他先進技術被盜，」司法部長梅裡克·加蘭說，他週三下午在舊金山出席美國律師協會會議時宣布了這一起訴。

The charges underscore the high-stakes contest for primacy in artificial intelligence. While American companies have developed most advances in generative A.I., China has made it a strategic priority to lead the growing field.

這些指控凸顯了在人工智慧領域爭奪領先地位的高風險競爭。雖然美國公司在生成式人工智慧領域取得了最多進展，但中國已將引領這一不斷發展的領域作為戰略重點。

Tech industry insiders have estimated that China is at least a year behind the United States, but many Chinese start-ups have tapped American technology to try to keep up, especially Meta’s open-source large language model, called Llama. Generative A.I., which is behind ChatGPT and the wave of conversational chatbots, has quickly become one of the world’s most coveted technologies.

據科技業內人士估計，中國至少比美國落後一年，但許多中國初創企業都在利用美國的技術以跟上美國的步伐，尤其是Meta公司的開源大語言模型Llama。ChatGPT和對話式聊天機器人浪潮背後的生成式人工智慧已迅速成為全球最令人垂涎的技術之一。

In seconds, these types of tools can generate convincing text and images that could be used to boost productivity, create misinformation or provide amusement. Audio and video capabilities are not far behind. Google developed some of the foundational breakthroughs that make these systems work. The company has said that its latest group of A.I. models, named Gemini, are among the most powerful available today.

只需幾秒鐘，這類工具就能生成令人信服的文本和圖像，用於提高工作效率、製造虛假信息或提供娛樂。音頻和影片功能也緊隨其後。谷歌開發的一些基礎性突破使這些系統得以運行。該公司表示，其最新的人工智慧模型「雙子座」(Gemini)是當今最強大的模型之一。

But since ChatGPT’s debut, Google has lost its status as a market leader and its stumbles have attracted attention. The company has been widely criticized for racial biases in its image generator, leading it to pause users’ ability to create images of people.

但自從ChatGPT面世以來，谷歌已經失去了市場領導者的地位，其磕磕絆絆的發展也引起了人們的關注。該公司因其圖像生成器中的種族偏見而廣受批評，導致其暫停了用戶創建人物圖像的功能。

Accusations of intellectual property theft have been a major sticking point in U.S.-China relations for years. A Chinese national was arrested in 2015 for selling some of IBM’s source code to parties in China. In 2018, a former Apple employee was apprehended as he tried to board a flight to Beijing with the company’s autonomous-driving trade secrets.

多年來，知識產權盜竊指控一直是中美關係的一大癥結。2015年，一名中國公民因向中國相關方出售IBM的部分源代碼而被捕。2018年，一名蘋果公司前員工在試圖攜帶該公司自動駕駛商業機密登上飛往北京的航班時被捕。

The same year, the Chinese firm Sinovel Wind Group was convicted of stealing wind turbine technology from a Massachusetts-based company, AMSC, which incurred more than $800 million in losses.

同年，中國華銳風電集團因竊取麻薩諸塞州AMSC公司的風力渦輪機技術而被定罪，AMSC因盜竊損失超過8億美元。

In October, Christopher A. Wray, the F.B.I. director, said that intellectual property theft from China was a danger to U.S. economic and national security, describing it as the “defining threat of this generation.”

今年10月，聯邦調查局局長克里斯托弗·雷表示，來自中國的知識產權盜竊對美國的經濟和國家安全構成了威脅，並將其稱為「這一代人的決定性威脅」。

José Castañeda, a Google spokesman, said in a statement: “We have strict safeguards to prevent the theft of our confidential commercial information and trade secrets. After an investigation, we found that this employee stole numerous documents, and we quickly referred the case to law enforcement. We are grateful to the F.B.I. for helping protect our information and will continue cooperating with them closely.”

谷歌發言人何塞·卡斯塔涅達在一份聲明中說：「我們有嚴格的保障措施來防止機密商業信息和商業祕密被盜。經過調查，我們發現這名員工竊取了大量文件，於是我們迅速將此案移交給了執法部門。我們感謝聯邦調查局幫助保護我們的信息，並將繼續與他們密切合作。」

Google added that its security systems worked as intended and that this “junior employee” was acting alone.

谷歌還表示，其安全系統按預期運行，這名「初級員工」是單獨行動的。

But the indictment suggested that Mr. Ding had some help: Another Google employee swiped Mr. Ding’s identification card at a company office to help him conceal a trip to China, according to the indictment.

但起訴書顯示，丁林葳得到了一些幫助。起訴書稱，另一名谷歌員工在公司辦公室刷了丁林葳的員工卡，幫他隱瞞了一次中國之行。

It was not immediately clear whether Mr. Ding has legal representation.

目前尚不清楚丁林葳是否有法律代表。

The government offered few details about the life of Mr. Ding, who began working for Google in early 2019 and quit suddenly in January — after booking a one-way ticket to Beijing.

丁林葳於2019年初開始為谷歌工作，今年1月突然辭職，在此之前，他購買了一張前往北京的單程機票。

Mr. Ding listed a degree from the Dalian Institute of Technology in China in 2010, along with degrees from the University of Southern California and Stanford, on a LinkedIn page that corresponded to his name and the details of employment at Google.

一個符合丁林葳姓名和谷歌工作經歷的LinkedIn個人頁面列出了此人2010年在中國大連理工大學獲得的學位，以及南加州大學和史丹佛大學的學位。

The page lists stints at software semiconductor and health care companies over the past decade, along with awards he said he earned at Google, including the “Perfy Award and Feats of Engineering.”

該頁面列出了他過去十年在半導體軟體和醫療保健公司的工作經歷，以及他聲稱在谷歌獲得的獎項，包括「Perfy獎和工程壯舉獎」。