Two-year prison term upheld for KAIST professor who leaked autonomous tech to China

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The Supreme Court has upheld a two-year prison sentence for a Korean scholar for leaking autonomous vehicle technologies to China.

The top court on Thursday upheld the lower court's verdict that found him guilty of leaking 72 files, including research data on light detection and ranging (LIDAR) technologies, from the Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology (KAIST) to Chinese professors between November 2017 and February 2020.

The remote-sensing technologies are used to measure real-time distances, which are critical for self-driving automobiles.

In 2017, the scholar joined the Thousand Talents Plan, a Chinese program to hire experts in science and technology from overseas. For his participation, he was reportedly offered 3.3 billion won ($2.4 million) for research projects and other expenses.

His wrongdoing was first detected in 2020 by national intelligence officials. The same year, he was indicted on charges of violating the Industrial Technology Act among other laws.