Former Apple employee pleads guilty to stealing self-driving car secrets

Back again in 2018, former Apple worker Xiaolang Zhang was arrested at San Jose Intercontinental Airport where he was going to board a last-moment flight to China. Zhang was accused of transferring a 25-web site document that consists of the engineering schematics of a circuit board for the firm’s self-driving vehicle, alongside with technical manuals describing Apple’s prototype, to his wife’s laptop. He was also accused of stealing circuit boards and a Linux server from the company’s enhancement labs. Now, Zhang has pleaded guilty to a felony charge of theft of trade secrets and techniques in San Jose federal court, according to CNBC.

The information group has received a court docket document (PDF) summarizing the proceedings in which Zhang improved his plea — he at first pleaded not responsible when he was indicted in 2018. In it, the court has famous that his plea agreement is beneath seal and that his sentencing is scheduled on November 14th. Zhang faces up to ten a long time in prison and could pay up to $250,000 in great.

Ahead of his arrest, Zhang labored as a hardware engineer in Apple’s autonomous auto division and was part of the staff that styles and assessments circuit boards for sensors. As CNBC notes, circuit patterns are usually regarded some of the most beneficial trade secrets and techniques in electronics. Apple reportedly to start with suspected Zhang of stealing from the enterprise when he turned in his resignation pursuing a paternity depart and a trip to China. He told the organization that he was resigning so he could shift back again to China and just take care of his mom. 

Zhang also informed Apple that he was planning to do the job with XPeng Motors, an electric vehicle manufacturer that’s also establishing its very own autonomous driving engineering. His entry to Apple’s methods was reduce off after he resigned, and an investigation followed before long right after. It was by means of that investigation that Apple uncovered that he transferred gigabytes’ really worth of major secret data files by way of AirDrop and observed him bodily getting hardware from the company’s labs through CCTV footage.

In the meantime, the tech giant continues to be as secretive about its autonomous car or truck enhancement progress as ever. Previous yr, Bloomberg’s Mark Gurman documented that Apple decided to aim on developing comprehensive self-driving capabilities and that the company is aiming to launch its autonomous electrical vehicle in 2025.