Google purchasing artificial intelligence startup DeepMind
The price, while not confirmed so far, is rumoured to be approximately $400 million
It seems that Google wants to take over the personal assistant market. It has been reported that they are in the process of purchasing an artificial intelligence startup company called DeepMind for what is rumoured to be about $400 million. According to sources, Google CEO Larry Page has led the deal himself.
DeepMind is based in London and it was founded by neuroscientist Demis Hassabis, who is also considered to be a games prodigy, according to Mind Sports Olympiad. The other founders are Shane Legg and Mustafa Suleyman. The company’s focus seems to be on learning algorithms for simulations, e-commerce and various games. So far DeepMind only has a landing page for a website and a Linkedln profile indicating that the company is about three years old.
Sources in the artificial business intelligence community describe the company as a formidable AI player and say that it has been aggressively recruiting in the space. They say that DeepMind has a team of at least 50 people and has quite a bit of funding already – almost $50 million. The company is described as “the last large independent company with a strong focus on artificial intelligence” which is competing with the likes of Google, Facebook and Baidu.
Sources claim that a major investor in this company is Founders Find, Horizons Venture and even Skype and Kazaa developer Jaan Tallinn, who was also an advisor.
Google’s competition in this market is Microsoft, which is rumoured to be working on Cortana and Yahoo building up a portfolio of smart apps and services. Meanwhile Google is currently advertising Google Now as something that is so smart that it can actually anticipate what you’re looking for without the person even asking for it.
This seems like a smart step for Google, seeing as the this particular field is what the major companies have set their sights on.
Source: Re/code
