Google denies shift from UK as Deepmind founder steps back

Image: ΝΕΑ ΔΗΜΟΚΡΑΤΙΑ [ CC BY-NC 4.0 ], via Flickr AI lab’s new leader based in California, with Demis Hassabis remaining in London as chair Google has denied that control of the company’s research efforts will shift towards the US as Demis Hassabis steps back from leading its London-based AI research wing, Deepmind. Last week, Google announced an overhaul of its senior leadership , with Hassabis (pictured) moving from chief executive to chair of Deepmind, as well as becoming chief scientist of Google’s parent company Alphabet. Hassabis co-founded Deepmind as a private AI research laboratory in 2010 and became chief executive when Google bought the company in 2014. With links to University College London, where Hassabis worked as a researcher, Deepmind is the most high-profile AI research lab in the UK and a cornerstone of London’s booming AI sector. On 6 August, the Financial Times reported that the leadership changes represent Google “shifting control of its AI effort from London back to Silicon Valley”. Deepmind will be led by senior vice president Koray Kavukcuoglu from Google’s headquarters in California. ‘Committed’ to London Deepmind told Research Professional News it was “not accurate” that Google is changing its location strategy and that “there is no consolidation”. “Specifically in London, we remain committed to our presence here and continue to believe that the UK is a centre of extraordinary technological innovation with incredible talent,” a spokesperson said, adding that Google’s major new UK headquarters in King’s Cross “will serve as a hub for AI innovation”. The spokesperson added that Hassabis “will continue to be based out of our P37 office in London as will much of Google Deepmind’s leadership”. Research-led culture Google is considered to have fallen behind rivals OpenAI and Anthropic in some areas of frontier AI development and is focused on closing the gap through its research operation. While Deepmind oversees development of Google’s large language model Gemini, it is most famous for pioneering AI breakthroughs such as AlphaFold, a system for predicting protein structures that won Hassabis the Nobel Prize in 2024. Asked what the leaderships changes meant for Deepmind’s research-led culture, the spokesperson said the changes “create more space to focus on more scientific breakthroughs, as well as the societal impact of AGI [artificial general intelligence]”. “Our research portfolio is the broadest and deepest research of any AI lab,” they added. AGI ‘close at hand’ In a message sent to staff on 5 August, Hassabis said he had been “working towards AGI my whole life” and felt it is “close at hand”. “With this backdrop, I’ve decided that now is the right time for me to hand over my day-to-day operational responsibilities at Google Deepmind, so that I have the time and space to focus on the big picture and help influence what is to come to the best of my ability,” he added. Hassabis also said he would be “leaning into” his role at Isomorphic Labs, a Deepmind spinoff he founded in 2021 and which focuses on AI-powered drug discovery. View this article on Research Professional