e former Apple employees have been arrested in the United States on suspicion of trade secrets to a Chinese company. Xiaolang Zhang is due during his parental leave Apple He has downloaded carefully-guarded information about a self-driving car onto his laptop and shared it with start-up Xiaopeng Motors, according to the FBI’s indictment. In addition, he should have stolen hardware. The investigators arrested Zhang at San Jose Airport in California before fleeing to China.
“We are working with the authorities on this matter and will do everything we can to ensure that this person and all others involved are held accountable for their actions,” Apple said.
Known for its iPhones, iPads and iPods, the group has entered the race to develop autonomous-moving cars comparatively late and has remained largely blank over its exact ambitions in the field. According to the indictment, 5,000 of the approximately 135,000 Apple employees have information about the car project. Zhang is said to have been among the 2700 employees who also have access to the secret files.
Apple had not been granted permission to test in California until April 2017. CEO Tim Cook had said that the company’s focus was on autonomous systems, which included self-driving vehicles. It is a core technology that Apple considers very important. Previously, however, had already received numerous approvals in the United States numerous companies such as Google, Ford, Volkswagen and Daimler.