The US government has charged six Chinese nationals with economic espionage, saying they stole secrets from two companies that develop technology often used in military systems, the US Department of Justice said on Tuesday.
It was the third time in as many years that US authorities have made accusations of economic espionage conducted on behalf of China, a sign that the US is increasingly focused on what it has termed a top national security concern.
According to a 32-count criminal indictment filed on April 1 and unsealed on Tuesday, the group led a long-running effort to obtain US trade secrets for universities and companies controlled by the Chinese government.
The charges against the six could exacerbate tensions between China and the US.
“The Chinese government expresses strong concern about the relevant matter and we are checking further details,” Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs spokesman Hong Lei (洪磊) told reporters at a regular press briefing in Beijing.
Hong declined to comment when asked whether the case would undermine Sino-US relations, but said the Chinese government would make sure that the “legitimate rights and interests of the Chinese personnel are guaranteed.”
One of the suspects, Zhang Hao (張浩), 36, was arrested on Saturday last week in Los Angeles after he arrived on a flight from China, the justice department said in a statement.
The other five suspects are believed to be in China.
Zhang and two other professors from Tianjin University were charged with stealing source code and other proprietary information from chipmakers Avago Technologies Ltd and Skyworks Solutions Inc, where two of them worked.
Avago has headquarters in San Jose, California and Singapore, and Skyworks is based in Woburn, Massachusetts.
Zhang and others established a company, ROFS Microsystems (諾思微系統), at Tianjin University with secrets stolen from the US firms, prosecutors said. Calls to ROFS Microsystems went unanswered yesterday.
The university organized an immediate investigation, an employee from the university’s publicity department said by telephone. He declined to be named as he was not authorized to speak to media.
“The current investigation is still under way,” he said, adding that the school would issue an official response soon.
Prosecutors identified the other five suspects as Pang Wei (龐慰), 35, a former Avago employee and a professor; Chen Jinping (陳津平), 41, a professor and a member of the board of directors for ROFS Microsystems; Zhou Chong (周沖), 26, a Tianjin graduate student and design engineer at ROFS Microsystems; Zhang Huisui (張惠穗), 34, who studied with Pang and Zhang Hao at the University of Southern California (USC); and Zhao Gang (趙剛), 39, who is the general manager of ROFS Microsystems.
Pang and Zhang Hao met at USC during their doctoral studies in electrical engineering, where they conducted research on technology under funding from the US Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency. After earning their doctorates, Pang joined Avago and Zhang took a job at Skyworks.
Both companies specialize in Film Bulk Acoustic Resonator (FBAR) technology, which is primarily used in mobile devices like cellphones, tablets and GPS devices, but also has military applications.
Between 2006 and 2007, Pang and Zhang hatched a plan to start manufacturing the technology in China and met with Tianjin University officials, prosecutors said. In 2009, both left the US companies to become professors at Tianjin.
A shell company called Novana was created in the Cayman Islands, but led by the Chinese academics and Tianjin, with Chinese government support, to manufacture rival technology products, according to US investigators.
If convicted, the defendants could face up to 50 years in prison.
US Department of State spokesman Jeff Rathke told reporters that the US is committed to protecting US companies’ trade secrets.
“This is an important issue for the United States,” he said.
Hao teaches at Tianjin’s School of Precision Instrument and Opto-electronics Engineering, according to the university’s Web site. Both Zhang and Pang led a research team in a microelectromechanical systems filter chip project, the university said in 2011 on its Web site.
In 2010, Zhang and Pang were featured in an article in the state-run China Economic Net Web site as four of Tianjin’s younger generation of “academic leaders.”
Additional reporting by AFP
WASHINGTON’S INCENTIVES: The CHIPS Act set aside US$39 billion in direct grants to persuade the world’s top semiconductor companies to make chips on US soil The US plans to award more than US$6 billion to Samsung Electronics Co, helping the chipmaker expand beyond a project in Texas it has already announced, people familiar with the matter said. The money from the 2022 CHIPS and Science Act would be one of several major awards that the US Department of Commerce is expected to announce in the coming weeks, including a grant of more than US$5 billion to Samsung’s rival, Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電), people familiar with the plans said. The people spoke on condition of anonymity in advance of the official announcements. The federal funding for
HIGH DEMAND: The firm has strong capabilities of providing key components including liquid cooling technology needed for AI servers, chairman Young Liu said Hon Hai Precision Industry Co (鴻海精密) yesterday revised its revenue outlook for this year to “significant” growth from a “neutral” view forecast five months ago, due to strong demand for artificial intelligence (AI) servers from cloud service providers. Hon Hai, a major assembler of iPhones that is also known as Foxconn, expects AI server revenues to soar more than 40 percent annually this year, chairman Young Liu (劉揚偉) told investors. The robust growth would uplift revenue contribution from AI servers to 40 percent of the company’s overall server revenue this year, from 30 percent last year, Liu said. In the three-year period
LONG HAUL: Largan Energy Materials’ TNO-based lithium-ion batteries are expected to charge in five minutes and last about 20 years, far surpassing conventional technology Largan Precision Co (大立光) has formed a joint venture with the Industrial Technology Research Institute (ITRI, 工研院) to produce fast-charging, long-life lithium-ion batteries for electric vehicles, mobile electronics and electric storage units, the camera lens supplier for Apple Inc’s iPhones said yesterday. Largan Energy Materials Co (萬溢能源材料), established in January, is developing high-energy, fast-charging, long-life lithium-ion batteries using titanium niobium oxide (TNO) anodes, it said. TNO-based batteries can be fully charged in five minutes and have a lifespan of 20 years, a major advantage over the two to four hours of charging time needed for conventional graphite-anode-based batteries, Largan said in a
Taiwan is one of the first countries to benefit from the artificial intelligence (AI) boom, but because that is largely down to a single company it also represents a risk, former Google Taiwan managing director Chien Lee-feng (簡立峰) said at an AI forum in Taipei yesterday. Speaking at the forum on how generative AI can generate possibilities for all walks of life, Chien said Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) — currently among the world’s 10 most-valuable companies due to continued optimism about AI — ensures Taiwan is one of the economies to benefit most from AI. “This is because AI is