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Google buys UK artificial intelligence start-up DeepMind for £400m Google buys UK artificial intelligence start-up DeepMind for £400m
(about 1 hour later)
Google has bought a London artificial intelligence company for a reported £400m ($650m), its biggest ever European acquisition. A former child chess prodigy and computer game designer from London has sold his company to Google for around £300m in one of the Internet giant’s largest European acquisitions.
The US technology giant has reportedly spent the sum on artificial intelligence firm DeepMind, according to technology website Re/Code. Google confirmed it has bought the start-up but would not discuss the price. Demis Hassabis, a computer scientist, is understood to have struck the deal with Google for his secretive start-up business Deep Mind Technologies, which specialises in artificial intelligence (AI) for computers.
DeepMind was founded in 2012 by former chess prodigy, video games designer and neuroscientist Demis Hassabis. The company's website describes it as a “cutting edge artificial intelligence company” combining “the best techniques from machine learning and systems neuroscience to build powerful general-purpose learning algorithms.” Hassabis, 37, has built the company by bringing together neuroscientists and computer engineers in an effort to use technology and medical research to help machines to mimic the brain’s ability to improve performance. He previously led a study at University College London in 2009 that scanned human brains and found “just by looking at neural activity we were able to say what someone was thinking”.
These algorithms allow programmes and systems to learn from experience and DeepMind’s says its initial commercial applications have been in simulations, e-commerce and games. Google founder Larry Page, who has expressed interest in making search commands easier by having an implant in the brain, is understood to have led the move to buy Deep Mind. Google is exploring smart technology that will enable it to go into space travel and create self-driving cars.
The website The Information claimed that Google had beaten Facebook to the acquisition and had sealed the deal after agreeing to set up an ethics board to ensure that the AI technology was not abused.
IBM recently pledged $1 billion to fund Watson (above) - its own 'cognitive computing' machine that its hoped will one day understand the nuances of human language.IBM recently pledged $1 billion to fund Watson (above) - its own 'cognitive computing' machine that its hoped will one day understand the nuances of human language.
An ad posted by the company looking for an intern, asked: “Are you worried that the only place for smart people with a passion for software in London is in soul-crushing finance? Are you looking to work in a company that invests in hard research to create cutting edge new machine learning algorithms?” Hassabis is known within the computer gaming industry for having “a brain larger than a planet”. He began playing chess when he was four years old, reached Master Standard by the age of 13 and represented England.
Founder Hassabis worked on classic PC games including Theme Park and Black & White, on which he was a lead artificial intelligence programmer. The Mind Sports Olympiad (an international competition for games of mental skill) described Hassabis as "probably the best games player in history". He did his first work in the games industry only two years later when he entered a competition to design a clone for Space Invaders. Going into the industry seemed like “the perfect marriage between games and programing”, he has said.
Sources speaking to Re/Code said that although DeepMind was not a household name, it was respected in the artificial intelligence community and competed with the likes of Google and Facebook in attracting engineering talent. By the age of 16 – having already completed his A-levels – Hassabis began working at games company Bullfrog and co-wrote the successful game Theme Park – which was based on an amusement park and released in 1994 - in his year off before going to the University of Cambridge. His student friends struggled to believe he was the author of such a successful product until they saw his name on the packaging.
It's not clear exactly how Google will be using DeepMind's machine learning technology, but speculation ranges from improving the company's Google Now services to integration with its recently-purchased robotics technologies. After graduating with a triple first in computer science from Queen’s College, Hassabis quickly returned to the games industry and became a lead AI programmer at Lionhead Studios, the Surrey-based company founded by British computer games pioneer Peter Molyneux. Very soon afterwards the young graduate went off to set up his own business, Elixir Studios, where he was executive designer of a game called Republic: The Revolution, which attempted to recreate a “living, breathing city” and was nominated for a BAFTA.
Joe Mc Donagh and Demis Hassabis, in the green shirt, in 1999 (david Sandison) Although he has accepted that the project was over-ambitious, he told games website CVG that he had always been prepared to take chances. “I’m actually more worried about not taking risks and playing safe, not pushing myself enough,” he said. “It’s a bit perverse I suppose, and asking for trouble. I’ve always been prepared to jump in at the deep end and see if I can swim or not.”
For many years, Hassabis was a successful competitor in the London-based Mind Sports Olympiad, taking part in its elite Pentamind contest – a sort of mental pentathlon. Hassabis was Pentamind champion in five of the first seven years after the Olympiad was founded in 1997. His success meant that he was described as “probably the best games player in history”. Hassabis is an expert in the Japanese board game Shogi and an accomplished poker player.
His next computer game Evil Genius, which was based on a Bond-style villain in an island lair, was more favourably received by critics. After selling the rights to publishers, Hassabis sold the studio and went into medical science in order to further pursue his interest in AI technology. He was elected a fellow of the Royal Society of Arts for his game designs.
Hassabis co-wrote 'Theme Park', which was released in 1994 As a cognitive neuroscientist he specialised in autobiographical memory (combining personal recollection and general knowledge) and amnesia. He investigated whether patients with lesions to the Hippocampus parts of their brains suffered damage to their imagination process as well as their memory recall. He completed his doctorate in cognitive neuroscience in 2009 at University College London and became a fellow at the college’s Gatsby Computational Neuroscience Unit and a visiting scientist at MIT and Harvard.
'Evil Genius' was received favourably by critics In 2012, he left academia to set up Deep Mind Technologies, developing technology for e-commerce and gaming and creating computer systems capable of playing computer games. The company, which was based in central London’s Russell Square before moving to Fenchurch Street, has a reputation for secrecy. Its aim is said to be to develop computers that think like humans. It is said to employ 50 people including co-founders Shane Legg, a 40-year-old New Zealander, and Mustafa Seleyman, a 29-year-old Briton.
Deep Mind’s investors include US Tesla car mogul Elon Musk, early Facebook investor Peter Thiel and the family of London app creator Nick d’Aloisio, who are all set for windfalls following the sale to Google. D’Aloisio, from south London, sold his news based app Summly to Yahoo! for a reported £19m early last year.