As Google looks to maintain pace in AI with the rest of the tech giants, it’s consolidating its AI research divisions.
Google today announced Google DeepMind, a new unit made up of the DeepMind team and the Google Brain team from Google Research. In a blog post, DeepMind co-founder and CEO Demis Hassabis said that Google DeepMind will work “in close collaboration … across the Google product areas” to “deliver AI research and products.”
As a part of Google DeepMind’s formation, Google says that it’ll create a new scientific board to oversee research progress and the direction of the unit, which will be led by Koray Kavukcuoglu, VP of research at DeepMind. Eli Collins, VP of product at Google Research, will join Google DeepMind as VP of product, while Google Brain lead Zoubin Ghahramani will become a member of the Google DeepMind research leadership team, reporting to Kavukcuoglu.
Meanwhile, Jeff Dean, one of the co-founders of Google Brain, will take on the elevated role of chief scientist for both Google Research and Google DeepMind, reporting to.
Google CEO Sundar Pichai. Google Research will remain an independent division reporting to Google SVP of technology and society James Manyika, focused on “fundamental advances in computer science across areas such as algorithms and theory, privacy and security, quantum computing, health, climate and sustainability and responsible AI.”
“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,” Hassabis wrote. “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.”