AMSC Case - Green Industry Shaken by IP Theft in 2011

AMSC Case - Green Industry Shaken by IP Theft in 2011

In 2011, American Superconductor (AMSC), a fast-growing player in the renewable energy sector, was devastated by a deal with China's Sinovel Wind Group. Sinovel had illegally copied AMSC's wind turbine control software and blueprints, used them in its own products, and abruptly canceled a contract worth over $700 million. This decision caused AMSC's stock price to drop 40% in one day and plunge 84% in a few months.

A subsequent investigation uncovered the fact that Sinovel had taken AMSC's entire source code and made it possible to produce an equivalent system in-house. This was not a mere suspension of business, but intellectual property theft orchestrated on a national level, and described by the US authorities as "one of the largest transfers of wealth in the history of mankind. It was also revealed that Dejan Karabasevic, a Serbian engineer who worked at AMSC's Austrian office, was involved as an inside collaborator, highlighting the reality of the insider threat.

The background to this incident is the global energy transition policy of the early 2010s. Countries were promoting the introduction of renewable energy as a way to combat climate change, and China was fostering wind power generation as part of its national strategy. With rapid industrial expansion, the acquisition of foreign technology was a top priority, and cyberattacks and industrial espionage were the norm. the AMSC case showed that environmental technology is at the core of international economic security, and it raised fundamental questions about the protection of intellectual property and the nature of corporate defense.

The AMSC Case - 2011