Alphabet merges Google Brain & DeepMind teams into one AI group called Google DeepMind

As the AI race enters a new phase, Google’s Alphabet announced today the consolidation of its AI research divisions to better position itself in its battle with Microsoft.

In a blog post on Thursday, Alphabet said that DeepMind and the Brain team from Google Research will be joining forces as a single, focused unit called Google DeepMind. In addition, the company also announced that Google’s head of AI, Jeff Dean, was promoted to the position of Chief Scientist.

“When Shane Legg and I launched DeepMind back in 2010, many people thought general AI was a farfetched science fiction technology that was decades away from being a reality. Now, we live in a time in which AI research and technology is advancing exponentially. In the coming years, AI – and ultimately AGI – has the potential to drive one of the greatest social, economic and scientific transformations in history. That’s why today Sundar is announcing that DeepMind and the Brain team from Google Research will be joining forces as a single, focused unit called Google DeepMind. ”

DeepMind also confirmed the news in a post on Twitter.

“We’re proud to announce that DeepMind and the Brain team from @Google Research will become a new unit: . Together, we’ll accelerate progress towards a world where AI can help solve the biggest challenges facing humanity. →,” DeepMind tweeted.

https://twitter.com/DeepMind/status/1649097822338449409

The news comes just a week after Google DeepMind demoed its AI-powered robots that taught themselves to play soccer without being programmed by humans.

Over the weekend, DeepMind demoed how its AI-powered robots taught themselves to play soccer during an interview with CBS’ “60 Minutes” that aired Sunday. The interview featured a soccer match between two DeepMind robots at Google’s AI lab in London.

DeepMind was founded in London in 2010 by Demis Hassabis, along with his childhood buddy Mustafa Suleyman, and Shane Legg. Google acquired the firm in 2015, and it is now a subsidiary of Alphabet, Google’s parent company. DeepMind is building AI that can learn and reason like people, as opposed to ChatGPT, which simply reacts to discussions by prompts.

DeepMind is particularly interested in developing AI that can learn and grow on its own, without the need for human interaction. Its research has spanned several fields, including machine learning, deep learning, and reinforcement learning.

One of DeepMind’s most notable accomplishments is AlphaGo, a program that defeated a human champion in the game of Go in 2016.  This was an important breakthrough in the science of artificial intelligence since Go is a considerably more difficult game than chess and was considered to be beyond the capacity of computers to grasp.DeepMind has continued to make important achievements in AI research since then, especially in healthcare, climate change, and energy efficiency.

You can read the entire post below.

“Earlier today we announced some changes that will accelerate our progress in AI and help us develop more capable AI systems safely and responsibly. Below is a recap of what DeepMind CEO Demis Hassabis shared with employees:

Hi Team

When Shane Legg and I launched DeepMind back in 2010, many people thought general AI was a farfetched science fiction technology that was decades away from being a reality. 

Now, we live in a time in which AI research and technology is advancing exponentially. In the coming years, AI – and ultimately AGI – has the potential to drive one of the greatest social, economic and scientific transformations in history. 

That’s why today Sundar is announcing that DeepMind and the Brain team from Google Research will be joining forces as a single, focused unit called Google DeepMind. Combining our talents and efforts will accelerate our progress towards a world in which AI helps solve the biggest challenges facing humanity, and I’m incredibly excited to be leading this unit and working with all of you to build it. Together, in close collaboration with our fantastic colleagues across the Google Product Areas, we have a real opportunity to deliver AI research and products that dramatically improve the lives of billions of people, transform industries, advance science, and serve diverse communities.

By creating Google DeepMind, I believe we can get to that future faster. Building ever more capable and general AI, safely and responsibly, demands that we solve some of the hardest scientific and engineering challenges of our time. For that, we need to work with greater speed, stronger collaboration and execution, and to simplify the way we make decisions to focus on achieving the biggest impact.

Through Google DeepMind, we are bringing together our world-class talent in AI with the computing power, infrastructure and resources to create the next generation of AI breakthroughs and products across Google and Alphabet, and to do this in a bold and responsible way. The research advances from the phenomenal Brain and DeepMind teams laid much of the foundations of the current AI industry, from Deep Reinforcement Learning to Transformers, and the work we are going to be doing now as part of this new combined unit will create the next wave of world-changing breakthroughs.

Sundar, Jeff Dean, James Manyika, and I have built a fantastic partnership as we’ve worked to coordinate our efforts over recent months. I am looking forward to working closely with Eli Collins, who will be joining my leads team as VP of Product, and Zoubin Ghahramani who will be joining the research leadership team reporting to Koray Kavukcuoglu. We’re also creating a new Scientific Board for Google DeepMind to oversee research progress and direction of the unit, which will be led by Koray and will have representatives from across the orgs. Jeff, Koray, Zoubin, Shane and myself will be finalising the composition of this board together in the coming days.

I’m sure you will have lots of questions about what this new unit will look like for you, your teams, and all of us, and we will be working hard to provide clarity for everyone as rapidly as possible. Please read Sundar’s note, and tune in to the town hall meeting tomorrow.

I’m thrilled to be on this journey with you and look forward to seeing everyone soon. 

Best
Demis”