AI Leaders

Sir Demis Hassabis

Co-founder & CEO · Google DeepMind
United KingdomFounderCEOScientistAGIReinforcement LearningScience

Demis Hassabis is co-founder and CEO of Google DeepMind. A chess prodigy and former games developer, he completed a PhD in cognitive neuroscience before founding DeepMind in 2010. DeepMind produced AlphaGo, AlphaFold and the Gemini model family. He shared the 2024 Nobel Prize in Chemistry with John Jumper and David Baker for protein-structure prediction.

Education: PhD in cognitive neuroscience, UCL · Computer science, University of Cambridge

Career timeline

  1. 2010
    DeepMind founded
    Founded in London with Shane Legg and Mustafa Suleyman.
  2. 2014
    Acquired by Google
    DeepMind is acquired by Google.
  3. 2016
    AlphaGo beats Lee Sedol
    Landmark 4-1 match victory in Seoul, March 2016.
  4. 2020
    AlphaFold 2 at CASP14
    Protein-structure prediction reaches experimental accuracy.
  5. 2023
    Google DeepMind formed
    DeepMind and Google Brain merge; Gemini is announced in December 2023.
  6. 2024
    Nobel Prize in Chemistry
    Awarded jointly for computational protein-structure prediction.

Major achievements

  • AlphaGo
  • AlphaFold and the AlphaFold Protein Structure Database
  • Gemini model family
  • Nobel Prize in Chemistry 2024
  • Knighted in 2024

Leadership style & philosophy

Frames AI as an instrument for science — picks 'root node' problems where a solved model unlocks entire fields.

Public perspectives

Press · 10/9/2024

Positions AI as an instrument for accelerating scientific discovery — protein structure prediction being the first proof that a learned model can solve a 50-year-old grand challenge in biology.

The Nobel Prize — Chemistry 2024

Official sources

Google DeepMind AlphaFold Nobel Prize page