WILMINGTON, Delaware, Jan 29 (Reuters) – Former Google software engineer Linwei Ding was convicted by a federal jury in San Francisco on Thursday of stealing AI trade secrets from the U.S. tech giant to benefit two Chinese companies he was secretly working for, the U.S. Department of Justice said on Thursday. Ding, a 38-year-old Chinese national, was found guilty after an 11-day trial of seven counts of economic espionage and seven counts of theft of trade secrets for stealing thousands of pages of confidential information. Each economic espionage charge carries a maximum 15-year prison term and $5 million fine, while each trade secrets charge carries a maximum 10-year term and $250,000 fine. Ding was originally indicted in March 2024 on four counts of theft of trade secrets. Prosecutors said Ding joined Google in May 2019 and began his thefts three years later, when he was being courted to join an early-stage Chinese technology company.