Expanding our knowledge, finding new answers

Who we are

Artificial intelligence could be one of humanity’s most useful inventions. We research and build safe AI systems that learn how to solve problems and advance scientific discovery for all.

Our story

We’re a team of scientists, engineers, machine learning experts and more, working together to advance the state of the art in artificial intelligence. We use our technologies for widespread public benefit and scientific discovery, and collaborate with others on critical challenges, ensuring safety and ethics are the highest priority.

Uncovering new knowledge

We’ve always been fascinated by intelligence. It’s what gives us the ability to solve problems, find creative ideas, and make the scientific breakthroughs that built the world we live in today. 

So many discoveries await us, and so many challenges to our wellbeing and environment are yet to be solved. Like the Hubble telescope that helps us see deeper into space, we aim to build advanced AI - sometimes known as Artificial General Intelligence (AGI) - to expand our knowledge and find new answers. By solving this, we believe we could help people solve thousands of problems.

Where we began

When we started DeepMind in 2010, there was far less interest in the field of AI than there is today. We wanted to try a new interdisciplinary approach to accelerate the field – bringing together new ideas and advances in machine learning, neuroscience, engineering, mathematics, simulation and computing infrastructure - as well as a new way of organising scientific endeavour.

We saw early success in computer games, which researchers often use to test AI. One of our programs learned how to play 49 different Atari games from scratch just from seeing the pixels and score on the screen, and our AlphaGo program was the first to beat a professional player at the ancient game of Go, a feat experts described as a decade ahead of its time.

Recent progress

We joined forces with Google in 2014 to accelerate our work, while continuing to set our own research agenda. Our programs have learned to diagnose eye diseases as effectively as the world’s top doctors, to save 30% of the energy used to keep data centres cool, and to predict the complex 3D shapes of proteins - which could one day transform how drugs are invented.

Scientific breakthroughs

These projects build on our breakthroughs published in Nature, Science, and other scientific journals. While there are many unresolved research questions, we're excited at the progress we've made towards making systems capable of creativity and problem-solving.

Real-world impact

We regularly partner with other experts, finding ways to apply our advances to real-world challenges. So far, we've created systems to help save energy, identify eye disease, accelerate scientific discovery, and improve Google products used across the world.

Latest research

Our teams work across some of the most complex challenges in computer science. Explore our research and publications covering a range of disciplines, including neuroscience, machine learning, robotics, language, computer vision, and environments.

Our global community

Giving back to the AI community

We’re inspired by those who came before us and are proud to be a dedicated part of the AI community today. As active members of the academic community, many of our team regularly teach at universities around the world. We also fund scholarships helping students from underrepresented backgrounds get involved in AI.

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Global labs

We started as an interdisciplinary team based in London, and have opened labs across the UK, USA, Canada, and France. DeepMind is home to scientific researchers, ethicists, program managers, game designers, and more. Together, we’re solving some of the most fascinating challenges in AI today. If that sounds exciting, join us!

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Leadership

We’re on a long-term mission. Our leadership team works across every part of the company and beyond to help chart the right course.

Demis Hassabis

Co-Founder & CEO

Shane Legg

Co-Founder & Chief Scientist

Photo of Lila Ibrahim
Lila Ibrahim

Chief Operating Officer

Koray Kavukcuoglu

Vice President of Research

Colin Murdoch

Business Director

Teams

Our success depends on many teams joining together for a shared goal. No single discipline has all the answers needed to build AI, and we've found that many exciting new ideas come from dedicated collaboration between different fields. Learn more about our dedicated teams and people below.

Research

Our teams work on cutting-edge computer science, neuroscience, ethics, and public policy to responsibly pioneer AI systems. Research scientists and engineers collaborate across DeepMind and with partners to create systems that can benefit all parts of society.

Engineering

Engineers help accelerate our research by building, maintaining, and optimising tools and environments. From scaling research prototypes to developing bespoke environments, our engineers enable us to perform safe, rigorous experimentation at scale.

Science

Our multidisciplinary group of researchers and engineers collaborate with expert partners on a wide range of scientific problems. From protein folding to quantum chemistry, we’re using AI to unlock some of the most fascinating challenges in the natural sciences.

Ethics & Society

Our interdisciplinary group of policy experts, philosophers, and researchers work with other groups in academia, civil society, and the broader AI community to address using new technologies, putting ethics into practice, and helping society address the impacts of AI.

DeepMind for Google

Researchers and engineers work with partners at Google to apply our systems in the real world. This collaboration has already reduced Google’s energy consumption and improved products that are in the hands of hundreds of millions of people.

Operations

Our dedicated teams include experts from program management, people development, travel, property, public engagement and more who work together to maintain, optimise, and nurture our culture and world-leading research.

Access to science

We hope to enable students and those further along in their career to achieve their full potential, regardless of their background. Our internship and scholarship programmes, created in partnership with different organisations, aim to broaden participation in science and protect the future of research and education.

Scholarships to open the field of AI

The DeepMind scholarship programme gives talented students from underrepresented backgrounds a chance to study at leading universities, and connect with our researchers and engineers. Scholars get their masters' studies paid in full, as well as guidance and support from personal DeepMind mentors. They are also given opportunities to attend educational events and major AI conferences.

Find out more about our DeepMind scholarships in this film or by clicking the links below to our partner universities.

UCL — Windsor Fellowship
Oxford — MSc in Computer Science
Cambridge — MPhil in Advanced Computer Science
NYU — Center for Data Science
Queen Mary University - AI at the Institute of Coding (IoC)