The Hidden Rivalry At Google DeepMind: London Versus Mountain View
- On Wednesday, Co-Founder Demis Hassabis stepped back as CEO to become Google DeepMind Chair, while Koray Kavukcuoglu assumed the role of senior vice president; Alphabet shares dropped following the announcement.
- Hassabis said his transition allows him to focus on global AGI matters, advise Kavukcuoglu, and dedicate time to Isomorphic Labs, believing AGI is "close at hand."
- Under Hassabis, DeepMind achieved breakthroughs like AlphaGo and AlphaFold; Hassabis told CNBC that none of this would have been possible without Google's backing and the "amount of compute that they could bring to play."
- Alphabet plans to spend up to $205 billion this year while facing "ferocious" competition from OpenAI and Anthropic in a race where nations also pursue AGI development.
- Sebastian Mallaby, author of "The Infinity Machine," wrote the transition "isn't out of character," noting Hassabis previously fought a three-year battle with Alphabet to secure external oversight of AI deployment safety.
19 Articles
19 Articles
Google DeepMind Reshuffles After CEO Demis Hassabis Steps Aside
Then-CEO of Google DeepMind, Demis Hassabis, speaks at the 2026 Google I/O technology developer conference in Mountain View, California, on May 19, 2026 —Karl Mondon—AFP/Getty ImagesDemis Hassabis, the founder and CEO of Google’s artificial intelligence division DeepMind, is stepping aside to a more advisory role, Google announced on Wednesday. Hassabis will become DeepMind’s chair, and take a new role as chief scientist at Google parent Alphabe…
The new chief scientist at tech giant Alphabet sees AI as the key to all scientific problems – and thereby to all global problems. But Demis Hassabis also warns of the dangers. His biographer: “He takes the existential risk of AI very seriously. And at the same time, he keeps building, as hard as he can.”
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