Google TPU V6 Designs are Probably in China

We should act faster in potential espionage cases.

I read on Twitter today morning about a Google Engineer getting arrested for leaking Google’s AI secrets. My first reaction was, “hmm .. maybe someone leaked Gemini weights”. Not great, but not terrible either so I moved on with my day without digging deeper.

Later today, I found the case document and my jaw dropped.

This is serious. The latest generation TPU (v6) specs made their way to Ding’s personal drive. I can only imagine a daily uplink from there to the PRC. To give an idea of how cutting-edge this is, the majority of US Google Cloud consumers have yet to get a v6 in their hands, and we only got access to v5 in August 2023 or so.

I went through the case document and compiled a timeline of Ding’s activities, and it feels like Ding could’ve easily escaped, and Google gave him enough opportunities for that.

Picture this: Google detects Ding was copying content he should not have, and instead of launching a full-blown investigation right away and involving the federal authorities, they make him sign a scouts-honor document attesting he deleted everything. 

“after Google detected this activity, DING told a Google investigator that he had uploaded the files to his personal account to use the information as evidence of the work that he had conducted at Google. DING assured the investigator that he had no intention of leaving Google.”

Incredulous! At that point, Google still had no idea about the full extent of the theft. That comes to light incidentally because Mr. Ding decided to give a presentation about the stolen tech at a conference organized by the Chinese incubator ("MiraclePlus") sometime before. Two weeks after encountering the Google investigator, Ding booked a one-way ticket to China but made the mistake of offering a resignation with a notice period. If he had booked the next day's flight and taken off, Google and law enforcement folks would be left empty-handed. Instead, there is an entire month between the first detected incident at Google and federal involvement, offering Ding numerous opportunities to escape.

Google has strong security practices, and they actively monitor for espionage activities. If this is the state at Google, I shudder to think how things work in other companies, national labs, and universities. We are building the future and leaving the gates open for anyone to take it. This tragic Google leak has undoubtedly put a dent in our efforts to maintain our competitive advantage. I hope Google and other frontier companies share as much as possible to beef up our collective IP protection practices.

PS: I will return to the copyright series. Life has happened in the past month. Thank you for your patience and patronage.