{"text":[[{"start":8.75,"text":"Sir Demis Hassabis, the founder of Google DeepMind, was an early investor in Anthropic, a previously undisclosed stake that highlights the Nobel laureate’s growing influence across the AI industry."}],[{"start":21.85,"text":"People familiar with the matter said Hassabis was an angel investor in Anthropic, which has since become a key AI rival and among the world’s fastest-growing start-ups. "}],[{"start":32.400000000000006,"text":"Google has separately invested billions of dollars in Anthropic as part of its cloud and AI partnership with the company. Anthropic chief Dario Amodei considers Hassabis a role model, according to people close to the company, which was recently valued by investors at $900bn."}],[{"start":50.25000000000001,"text":"News of the investment comes as former DeepMind researchers have founded more than a dozen companies since 2021, raising at least $14bn, according to PitchBook and Dealroom. They include UK-based Isomorphic Labs, also founded by Hassabis, and Ineffable Intelligence, which together raised more than $3bn in the past month from investors."}],[{"start":72.95,"text":"Hassabis, who sold his London-based AI lab to Google for £400mn in 2014, is also an angel investor in businesses founded by former colleagues."}],[{"start":84.65,"text":"This includes Inflection AI, launched by DeepMind co-founder Mustafa Suleyman before he joined Microsoft in 2024, and Ineffable Intelligence, founded by longtime collaborator David Silver."}],[{"start":97.5,"text":"Meanwhile, senior DeepMind executives have moved into key positions across Google as the company races to strengthen its AI operations. "}],[{"start":105.55,"text":"Koray Kavukcuoglu, DeepMind’s chief technology officer, was elevated last year to chief AI architect at Google, while Pushmeet Kohli, who led research including the Nobel Prize-winning AlphaFold project, was promoted last month to chief scientist at Google Cloud."}],[{"start":123.15,"text":"“Demis has a huge amount of soft power at Google and beyond,” said Matt Clifford, a longtime associate of Hassabis, and co-founder of start-up incubator Entrepreneurs First, in which Hassabis is also an angel investor."}],[{"start":137.05,"text":"“He was a pioneer before it was obvious what AI was, and the availability of capital for his protégés is pretty striking. That’s a big driver of what has happened.” "}],[{"start":146.35000000000002,"text":"Start-ups founded by former DeepMind employees include well-funded companies such as Mistral, Harvey, AMI Labs, Recursive Superintelligence, Latent Apps, Reflection AI, Cursive AI and Orbital Materials, among others."}],[{"start":160.95000000000002,"text":"A person close to Cambridge-based Cusp.ai, an AI search engine for new materials, said roughly one in three employees were former DeepMind or Isomorphic employees, although this did not include the start-up’s founders. "}],[{"start":175.05,"text":"Tantum Collins, a former DeepMind researcher and senior White House official, is now co-founding a stealth AI start-up in London’s King’s Cross with two other former DeepMind researchers, the latest example of the lab’s growing diaspora."}],[{"start":189,"text":"Collins said DeepMind established an early template for turning frontier AI research into commercially viable businesses. He credited Hassabis with instilling a disciplined approach to selecting research and business priorities in a crowded AI market."}],[{"start":204.2,"text":"“As a proof point and a source of inspiration, I think it’s responsible for a lot of what we see around here today,” Collins said of the AI cluster around King’s Cross, where Google recently opened a new $1bn headquarters."}],[{"start":217.95,"text":"The company said: “It is impressive to see Google DeepMind alumni building impactful new ventures. Investors clearly recognise Google DeepMind experience as a hallmark of deep expertise and high quality work.”"}],[{"start":232.14999999999998,"text":"DeepMind’s position within Google was strengthened in 2023, following a merger of Big Tech group’s research teams into a single unit led by Hassabis. "}],[{"start":241.89999999999998,"text":"The move was a response to new competition from OpenAI, which had released ChatGPT and triggered the AI boom. At the time, Hassabis said his new team would “need to work with greater speed, stronger collaboration and execution, and to simplify the way we make decisions to focus on achieving the biggest impact”. "}],[{"start":261.2,"text":"While his clout has grown over Google’s AI business, DeepMind continues to operate out of the UK rather than Silicon Valley. “Despite having stayed in London, Demis’s influence only increased,” Clifford said."}],[{"start":283.09999999999997,"text":""}]],"url":"https://audio.ftcn.net.cn/album/a_1779175088_4346.mp3"}