Archive · 8 Aug 2026
Top Google DeepMind Researchers Launch AI Startup Discovery Loop
Some of the smartest people who built Google's AI are leaving the company to start their own company called Discovery Loop.
They want to build AI that can make scientific discoveries all by itself.
Imagine a robot scientist that thinks of experiments, tries them out, and learns from the results without much help from humans.
First, the startup will use its AI to make better AI and machine learning systems.
Later, it hopes to help with medicine, new materials, and computer chips.
The leader of Google DeepMind, Demis Hassabis, is also changing jobs to become the chief scientist for the whole Alphabet company.
Google's top boss, Sundar Pichai, tried to convince the researchers to stay, but they wanted to move faster with their own startup.
Google is still helping them by investing money and giving them cloud computers to use.
This is one of the biggest moves of top AI talent away from Google in its history.
It also shows how strong the competition is between Google, OpenAI, and Anthropic.
Former Google DeepMind Chief Scientist Jeff Dean, along with Sanjay Ghemawat, Oriol Vinyals and Quoc Le, has launched Discovery Loop, an AI startup focused on automating scientific and engineering research.
Discovery Loop aims to build autonomous AI systems that propose experiments, run simulations, analyze results and continuously improve themselves with minimal human involvement.
Demis Hassabis is stepping down as Google DeepMind CEO to become Alphabet's Chief Scientist, part of a major leadership reshuffle.
Google will remain a founding investor and provide cloud computing infrastructure during Discovery Loop's early stages.
The startup will initially use its AI to improve machine learning systems, with plans to later apply it to biology, drug discovery, materials science and semiconductor design.
- Who
- Former Google DeepMind Chief Scientist Jeff Dean, with Sanjay Ghemawat, Oriol Vinyals and Quoc Le, and Google DeepMind CEO Demis Hassabis, who is stepping down to become Alphabet's Chief Scientist.
- What
- The researchers launched Discovery Loop, an AI startup focused on automating scientific and engineering research, alongside a leadership reshuffle at Google DeepMind.
- When
- Not specified in the article.
- Where
- Not specified in the article.
- Why
- The founders believe AI could eventually automate the entire scientific and engineering process, and they chose to build a startup where they could move faster and focus entirely on scientific AI.
- Startup name
- Discovery Loop
- Founders
- Jeff Dean, Sanjay Ghemawat, Oriol Vinyals, Quoc Le
- Focus
- Autonomous AI systems for scientific and engineering research
- Initial application
- Improving machine learning systems
- Future applications
- Biology, drug discovery, materials science, semiconductor design
- Jeff Dean's tenure at Google
- 27 years
- Google's role
- Founding investor and cloud computing infrastructure provider
- Leadership change
- Demis Hassabis becomes Alphabet's Chief Scientist after stepping down as Google DeepMind CEO