Google has acquired a London-based artificial intelligence startup DeepMind for about $400 million, reports Re/Code. In recent report, Techcrunch claims that Google paid more than $500 million. Google has confirmed the deal but declined to provide more details.
DeepMind is an artificial intelligence company that ‘combines the best techniques from machine learning and systems neuroscience to build powerful general-purpose learning algorithms’. The company is founded by Demis Hassabis, Shane Legg, and Mustafa Suleyman. They have developed applications in simulators, games, and e-commerce, says DeepMind official webpage. Demis Hassabis is a well-known computer game designer and a world-class game player. If all three founder joins Google, they will work with Ray Kurzweil, director of engineering focused on machine learning and language processing.
Sources confirmed that the deal was led by Google CEO Larry Page. Google’s hiring of DeepMind will surely help the company in competing with other tech giants that are trying to develop products in deep learning.
Google’s many projects rely on Artificial intelligence. Google also launched an Artificial Intelligence Lab back in May 2013. For this lab, Google also partnered with NASA. Google is also working on self-driving cars, which also need deep learning artificial intelligence. A month ago, Google had acquired Boston Dynamics, a robotics company, in a multi-million dollar deal. Google can also use this technology in making intelligent robots.
An interesting fact is that Facebook was also in talks to buy DeepMind late last year.
