New Delhi, Sept. 2 -- Former Google software engineer Linwei Ding was sentenced to nearly a year in prison on Tuesday after being convicted of stealing the tech giant's trade secrets linked to its artificial intelligence technology, according to a report by Kqed.org, a media organisation based in San Francisco.

US District Judge Vince Chhabria sentenced Ding to just under a year behind bars and described his actions as a "systematic, brazen effort to steal Google's property." During the sentencing hearing in San Francisco, Chhabria said, "He knew very well what he was doing. He hurt people along the way."

The sentencing followed a January jury verdict that found Ding, then 38, guilty on seven counts involving the theft of proprietary in...