Google, the global tech giant, is repositioning itself to remain competitive in the ever-expanding AI industry as it consolidates its previously independent AI research labs – Google Brain and DeepMind – into one unit titled Google DeepMind, thus bringing together the world-class talent present in both in order to speed up progress in AI. The move is seen as a way to stay competitive in the AI market, such as rival OpenAI.
Google’s Chief Executive Officer, Sundar Pichai, expressed in a blog post his belief this maneuver will accelerate progress in AI and called the aggregate “talent” which will be part of Google DeepMind “talent backed by the computational power of Google.”
Google Research, formerly the home of Google Brain, will remain a distinct division with the focus of “fundamental advances in computer science across areas such as algorithms and theory, privacy and security, quantum computing, health, climate and sustainability, and responsible AI”.
The focus of Google DeepMind, in contrast, will be the development of “next-gen” AI products and advancements, while adhering to ethical codes. This is according to the CEO of DeepMind, Demis Hassabis, who said in a blog post that the unit will “ boldly and responsibly” put its scientific and engineering talents to use.
Within Alphabet, DeepMind’s prominence has grown. According to a report from The Information, software engineers from Google Brain are already partnering with DeepMind to develop “Gemini”, an AI software to rival OpenAI.
Google claims that together, the research accomplishments of Google Brain and DeepMind are the basis of today’s AI industry, such as deep reinforcement learning, transformers, and word2vec. It is believed that this consolidation will allow them to develop upon this foundation.
Additionally, a town hall meeting has been announced to address the structure teams will take in Google DeepMind and the scientific board that will oversee it. Jeff Dean, Google’s Chief Scientist will be the leader for both Google Research and Google DeepMind and will be the responsible for setting the future direction of AI research at the company, as well as heading up the most significant technical projects related to AI, buoyed by multimodal AI models.
This shift marks Google’s commitment to the science of both DeepMind and Google Brain, and the competition in this field has become even more competitive. Google acquired DeepMind in 2014 for an estimated $500 million, since having achieved triumphs such as AlphaGo’s win over human Go players and AlphaFold’s accurate protein prediction software.
Venture Beat’s mission is to be an interactive portal for technical decision makers to learn about transformative enterprise technology and make informed purchases. Its “Transform 2023” eventto be held in San Francisco on July 11-12 will focus on successful AI integration and optimization and feature top executives, who will share their experiences in this field.
Google is driven by the mission to solve some of the world’s hardest scientific and engineering challenges. By creating a focused and powerful unit, such as Google DeepMind, it looks to help the world reach a brighter future faster.
