'Open Secret': Zuckerberg’s New AI Chief Warns Of China's Unprecedented Tech Theft Operation

Alexandr Wang, co-founder of Scale AI and Meta’s new AI chief, warned that China is orchestrating a sophisticated, large-scale intelligence operation targeting the U.S., with the objective of achieving global technological dominance. 

Wang, in an interview with Shawn Ryan, walked through China's strategy that combines state-driven data dominance with large-scale espionage wage by the country’s vast intelligence agency. 

"They are way ahead on power and power generation. They're behind on chips, but catching up on chips. They are ahead of us on data. China has had, again since 2018, a large-scale operation to dominate on data. I think there were over 2 million people in China who were working inside data factories, basically as data labelers or annotators, basically creating data to fuel into those AI systems,” Wang told Ryan. "I think that number in the U.S., by comparison, is something like 100,000. They're outspending us 12 to 1 on data. They have over seven cities, full cities in China, that are dedicated data hubs, um, that are basically powering, you know, this broad approach to data dominance. And then on algorithms, I think they are on par with us because of large-scale espionage.”

Wang said it was “open secret” in the tech industry that Chinese intelligence is systematically stealing U.S. intellectual property and secrets, detailing how a former Google engineer, Leon Ding, allegedly copied critical AI chip designs into Apple Notes, printed them, and walked out to start a company in China, undetected for months.

Wang then explained how roughly one-sixth of Chinese students in the U.S. are on CCP-sponsored scholarships requiring them to report findings to handlers or risk losing funding. This mandate, he claims, fuels a massive effort to collect technological secrets from America’s top institutions. 

“About a sixth of Chinese students, so, like, Chinese citizens who are students in America, are on scholarships sponsored by the CCP itself. And for those on these scholarships, they have to report back to a handler, basically, what are the things they find, what are the things they're learning, otherwise their scholarships get revoked,” the billionaire said. "There's an incredibly large-scale intelligence operation running against the US tech industry, which is just collecting all the information and secrets and technological secrets from our greatest research institutions, our universities, our AI labs.” 

There’s no shortage of reports detailing Chinese intelligence gathering against the U.S. 

The Wall Street Journal recently revealed a stunning admission from Chinese officials, who, during a clandestine December 2024 meeting in Geneva, Switzerland, indirectly acknowledged their involvement in the Volt Typhoon cyberattacks targeting U.S. critical infrastructure. Though their statements were described as “somewhat ambiguous,” the Journal reported they were clear enough to link the Chinese government to the sophisticated cyber campaign disrupting American systems.

Believed to have begun no later than 2023, the Volt Typhoon operation, alongside the related Salt Typhoon group, has wreaked havoc, infiltrating major U.S. telecommunications providers, electric utilities, IT companies, internet service providers, and government agencies.