Alphabet is merging an internal Google Research team called Brain with DeepMind, a move designed to bring two groups focused on artificial intelligence closer together as the battle for AI heats up.
Google acquired DeepMind in 2014 for a reported $500 million and has until now run it as an independent unit out of the U.K. DeepMind has been one of Alphabet’s “other bets,” performing futuristic work, such as teaching computer systems to beat top-ranked players of the Chinese board game Go.
“Combining all this talent into one focused team, backed by the computational resources of Google, will significantly accelerate our progress in AI,” Alphabet CEO Sundar Pichai said in blog post Thursday.
Jeff Dean, who currently leads Google’s AI efforts, will be promoted and given the title of chief scientist at Google, reporting to Pichai. He’ll head up the “most critical and strategic” technical projects related to AI, the first of which will be a series of powerful, multimodal AI models.
The move marks Google’s latest reorganization in response to the rapid developments in AI, following OpenAI’s launch of the chatbot ChatGPT late last year. CNBC previously reported that Google reshuffled its Assistant organization to prioritize the company’s AI chatbot Bard.
“The pace of progress is now faster than ever before,” Pichai wrote. “To ensure the bold and responsible development of general AI, we’re creating a unit that will help us build more capable systems more safely and responsibly.”
DeepMind has been able to operate separately from Google’s core research, enabling it to move quicker on breakthroughs such as AlphaFold, which can predict 3D models of protein structures. The two divisions, DeepMind and Google Research, have also reportedly had tensions in the past, leading DeepMind to seek more independence.
DeepMind CEO Demis Hassabis will lead the development of “the most capable and responsible general AI systems,” Pichai said. That research, he added, “will help power the next generation of our products and services.”
Brain, the Google Research team merging with DeepMind, is focused on AI and machine learning. Pichai said Google Research will continue work in areas such as algorithms and theory, privacy and security, quantum computing, health, and responsible Al.
In addition to the blog post, Pichai sent a lengthier memo to staffers about the changes.
James Manyika, Google’s senior vice president of technology and society, will now oversee Google Research, along with his existing teams, Pichai said. Manyika will report to Dean and the changes will take place over the next few weeks, the memo said.
Here’s the text of the memo, which CNBC obtained:
Hi everyone,
We’ve been an Al-first company since 2016 because we see Al as the most significant way to deliver on our mission. Since then, we’ve used Al to improve many of our core products, from Search, YouTube and Gmail to the incredible camera in Pixel phones. We’ve helped businesses and developers harness the power of Al via Google Cloud, and we’ve shown Al’s potential to address societal issues like health and climate change.
Along the way, we’ve been lucky to have two world-class research teams leading the entire industry forward with foundational breakthroughs that have ushered in a new era of Al.
The pace of progress is now faster than ever before. To ensure the bold and responsible development of general Al, we’re creating a unit that will help us build more capable systems more safely and responsibly.
This group, called Google DeepMind, will bring together part of Google Research (the Brain team) and DeepMind. Combining all this talent into one focused team, backed by the computational resources of Google, will significantly accelerate our progress in Al.
As CEO of the new unit, Demis Hassabis will lead the development of our most capable and responsible general Al systems — research that will help power the next generation of our products and services. Jeff Dean will take on the elevated role of Google’s Chief Scientist, reporting to me. In that capacity he’ll serve as Chief Scientist to Google Research and Google DeepMind. Jeff will help set the future direction of our Al research and head up our most critical and strategic technical projects related to Al — the first of which will be a series of powerful, multi-modal Al models.
This move brings together two leading research groups in the Al field. Their collective accomplishments in Al over the last decade span AlphaGo, Transformers, word2vec, WaveNet, AlphaFold, sequence to sequence models, distillation, deep reinforcement learning, and distributed systems and software frameworks like TensorFlow and JAX for expressing, training and deploying large scale ML models.
Google DeepMind will operate as a nimble, fast-paced unit, with clear points of connection and collaboration with Google Research and the PAs.
With this change, James Manyika will now oversee Google Research along with his existing Tech & Society teams. Many of Research’s technological advances have shaped core products and features across Alphabet and will continue to do so. Working closely with Jeff as Chief Scientist, Google Research will continue its focus on fundamental and applied research across a broad portfolio. This means cracking seemingly impossible, foundational and long-term challenges in computer science — including in Al and ML — that benefit people’s lives around the world, from algorithms and theory to privacy and security to quantum computing, health, responsible Al, and more.
We’re announcing these changes today and will take the next few weeks to get the new teams into place.
Please join me in congratulating Demis, Jeff, and James on their new roles and their continued collaboration. The Google Research and DeepMind teams have laid the foundation that brought us to this inflection point.
I’m so excited for the next phase of this journey the progress we’ make against our mission, and all the ways we’ll help people reach their potential with increasingly capable and responsible Al.
White House Senior Advisor Elon Musk walks to the White House after landing in Marine One on the South Lawn with U.S. President Donald Trump (not pictured) on March 9, 2025 in Washington, DC.
Samuel Corum | Getty Images News | Getty Images
Tesla shares fell in premarket trade on Monday after CEO Elon Musk announced plans to form a new political party.
The stock was down 7.13% by 4:27 a.m. E.T.
Musk said over the weekend that the party would be called the “America Party” and could focus “on just 2 or 3 Senate seats and 8 to 10 House districts.” He suggested this would be “enough to serve as the deciding vote on contentious laws, ensuring that they serve the true will of the people.”
Now tech billionaire’s reinvolvement in the political arena is making investors nervous.
“Very simply Musk diving deeper into politics and now trying to take on the Beltway establishment is exactly the opposite direction that Tesla investors/shareholders want him to take during this crucial period for the Tesla story,” Dan Ives, global head of technology research at Wedbush Securities, said in a note on Sunday.
“While the core Musk supporters will back Musk at every turn no matter what, there is broader sense of exhaustion from many Tesla investors that Musk keeps heading down the political track.”
Musk’s previous political foray earned him Trump’s praise in the early days, but he has since drawn the ire of the U.S. president.
The two have clashed over various areas of policy, including Trump’s spending bill which Musk has said would increase America’s debt burden. Musk has taken issue to particular cuts to tax credits and support for solar and wind energy and electric vehicles.
Trump on Sunday called Musk’s move to form a political party “ridiculous,” adding that the Tesla boss had gone “completely off the rails.”
Musk is contending with more than just political turmoil. Tesla reported a 14% year-on-year decline in car deliveries in the second quarter, missing expectations. The company is facing rising competition, especially in its key market, China.
Jonathan Ross, chief executive officer of Groq Inc., during the GenAI Summit in San Francisco, California, US, on Thursday, May 30, 2024.
David Paul | Bloomberg | Getty Images
Artificial intelligence semiconductor startup Groq announced Monday it has established its first data center in Europe as it steps up its international expansion.
Groq, which is backed by investment arms of Samsung and Cisco, said the data center will be located in Helsinki, Finland and is in partnership with Equinix.
Groq is looking to take advantage of rising demand for AI services in Europe following other U.S. firms which have also ramped up investment in the region. The Nordics in particular is a popular location for the data facilities as the region has easy access to renewable energy and cooler climates. Last month, Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang was in Europe and signed several infrastructure deals, including data centers.
Groq, which is valued at $2.8 billion, designs a chip that the company calls a language processing unit (LPU). It is designed for inferencing rather training. Inferencing is when a pre-trained AI model interprets live data to come up with a result, much like the answers that are produced by popular chatbots.
While Nvidia has a stranglehold on the chips required for training huge AI models with its graphics processing units (GPUs), there is a swathe of startups hoping to take a slice of the pie when it comes to inferencing. SambaNova; Ampere, a company SoftBank is in the process of purchasing; Cerebras and Fractile, are all looking to join the AI inference race.
European politicians have been pushing the notion of sovereign AI — where data centers must be located in the region. Data centers that are located closer to users also help improve the speed of services.
Global data center builder Equinix connects different cloud providers together, such as Amazon Web Services and Google Cloud, making it easier for businesses to have multiple vendors. Groq’s LPUs will be installed inside the Equinix data center allowing businesses to access Groq’s inference capabilities via Equinix.
Groq currently has data centers in the U.S. and Canada and Saudi Arabia with its technology.
Don’t miss Groq CEO Jonathan Ross on Squawk Box Europe at 7:45 a.m. London time.
Hidden among the majestic canyons of the Utah desert, about 7 miles from the nearest town, is a small research facility meant to prepare humans for life on Mars.
The Mars Society, a nonprofit organization that runs the Mars Desert Research Station, or MDRS, invited CNBC to shadow one of its analog crews on a recent mission.
“MDRS is the best analog astronaut environment,” said Urban Koi, who served as health and safety officer for Crew 315. “The terrain is extremely similar to the Mars terrain and the protocols, research, science and engineering that occurs here is very similar to what we would do if we were to travel to Mars.”
SpaceX CEO and Mars advocate Elon Musk has said his company can get humans to Mars as early as 2029.
The 5-person Crew 315 spent two weeks living at the research station following the same procedures that they would on Mars.
David Laude, who served as the crew’s commander, described a typical day.
“So we all gather around by 7 a.m. around a common table in the upper deck and we have breakfast,” he said. “Around 8:00 we have our first meeting of the day where we plan out the day. And then in the morning, we usually have an EVA of two or three people and usually another one in the afternoon.”
An EVA refers to extravehicular activity. In NASA speak, EVAs refer to spacewalks, when astronauts leave the pressurized space station and must wear spacesuits to survive in space.
“I think the most challenging thing about these analog missions is just getting into a rhythm. … Although here the risk is lower, on Mars performing those daily tasks are what keeps us alive,” said Michael Andrews, the engineer for Crew 315.
