A.I. Company DeepMind Acquired By Google, Should We Expect Cyborgs Now?

Google is in process of acquiring artificial intelligence company DeepMind based in London for a reported price of $400 million. It is said that Google confirmed the acquisition, but they did not specify a price for the deal.

DeepMind has been founded by games prodigy and neuroscientist Demis Hassabis, along with Shane Legg and Mustafa Suleyman. The company specializes in artificial intelligence for a variety of products, ranging from games, simulations, to e-commerce and even websites. It is also said that CEO Larry Page led the deal himself, due to the fact that not only the company has potential in the long run, but also Hassabis is known for his particular talent, dubbed “probably the best games player in history” by Mind Sports Olympiad.

Judging from LinkedIn, the company is quite young, having around 3 years, and it specializes mainly in building learning algorithms. Sources have said that Founders Fund , along with Horizons Venture are major investors in DeepMind, while having Skype and Kazaa developer Jaan Tallinn as an investor and advisor. Also, sources have said that DeepMind has a team of at least 50 people and has secured more than $50 million in funding. DeepMind is described as “the last large independent company with a strong focus on artificial intelligence,” and is said it competed with companies like Google, Facebook and Baidu for talent.

It makes sense for Google to be interested in such a company with great potential, and think of the possibilities with the AI algorithms! Why, not long ago Google acquired Boston Dynamics, a company that specializes in robotics. Whether they intent to implement the learning algorithms in their giant search engine or their newly acquired ‘toys’, we would expect to see ‘revolutionary’ results from Google in the near future.

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