Alphabet

Nov 4, 2026

Bloomberg: Alphabet-backed Isomorphic Labs in talks to raise about $5 billion

Bloomberg, citing people familiar with the matter, reported that Isomorphic Labs, an AI drug discovery company under Alphabet, is in talks to raise about $5 billion in new funding. The round would value the company at roughly $50 billion, according to the report. The people said the financing has not been completed and terms could still change. Isomorphic Labs was spun out of Google DeepMind in 2021. The company uses the AlphaFold protein structure prediction model in drug development. Earlier this year, in May, it completed a $2.1 billion financing round led by Thrive Capital, with Alphabet and others participating. The latest fundraising discussions, if completed on the reported terms, would mark another major capital raise for the company.

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Demis Hassabis

Oct 23, 2026

Demis Hassabis moves up AGI timeline, says it could arrive within two to three years

Demis Hassabis, the Google DeepMind chief executive and Nobel laureate, has sharply shortened his timeline for artificial general intelligence, saying in a Wall Street Journal interview that AGI could arrive within two to three years. The remark stands out because Hassabis has long been seen as one of the more cautious voices in AI. The report traces a series of revisions in his public forecasts, from saying in 2023 that AGI might take years or even a decade, to five to 10 years in January 2025, five years in February, and 2030 in April, before his latest two-to-three-year estimate. The interview also lays out Hassabis’ strict definition of AGI, including an "Einstein test" that asks whether an AI system given all human knowledge up to 1901 could independently derive the breakthroughs Einstein published in 1905. Hassabis said AI is still years away from independently inventing modern physics. He also discussed AI safety, warning at the Dublin international AI summit that the industry could face a serious safety incident in about two years if governments and companies do not raise standards. Hassabis said he drafted a proposal this summer for an industry-funded, federally supervised body to test frontier models before release, and argued that bad regulation could be worse than no regulation at all.

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AI BioDesign

Sep 28, 2026

AI BioDesign launches with $94.6 million to build proteins beyond nature

AI BioDesign, a new institute launched in Seattle on Sept. 3, is taking a different path from AlphaFold-style biology. Backed by $94.6 million from the Paul Allen estate and led by 2024 Nobel chemistry laureate David Baker and genomics researcher Jay Shendure, the group is focused on designing molecules that nature never evolved rather than predicting structures that already exist. Its core idea is not to spend the money on a larger general-purpose model, but on experimental throughput. The institute runs a loop in which AI proposes designs, the lab builds and measures them, and the results are fed back into the model for the next round. In one recent experiment, researchers tested 6 million designed DNA sequences in a single tube, a scale the article says would have taken years with traditional methods. The group argues that the bottleneck in protein design is no longer generating candidates but validating them fast enough. It also says its models, datasets, methods, reagents, and benchmarks will be open. At the same time, the effort raises biosafety questions around synthetic DNA screening, which Baker says should be addressed with sequence registration and purchaser records.

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Google

Aug 5, 2026

DeepMind CEO Demis Hassabis Plans to Step Down, Axios Reports

Demis Hassabis, CEO of Google DeepMind, plans to step down from the top job, Axios reported. In a brief on Aug. 6, PANews relayed the report. Hassabis, a leading figure in AI, co-founded DeepMind in 2010 and led the lab after Google acquired it in 2014. Under him, DeepMind released influential projects such as AlphaGo and AlphaFold and expanded into foundation models, artificial intelligence research, and scientific computing. It has become a core part of Google's AI strategy. Google has not made an official announcement, and no successor or split of responsibilities has been confirmed. The leadership change surfaces at a time when the global AI race is intensifying and Google faces tough competition from OpenAI and Anthropic. Google has not said who would take charge of DeepMind after Hassabis leaves. Any shift at the top of DeepMind could influence Google's approach to large-model development and AI commercialization.

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DeepMind

Aug 3, 2026

DeepMind loses key researchers to OpenAI and Anthropic

Google DeepMind is facing a notable talent drain, with several high-profile AI researchers moving to rival labs, according to Techub, citing Cryptobriefing. Noam Shazeer, a co-author of the Transformer paper, has joined OpenAI. John Jumper, who led the AlphaFold project, has moved to Anthropic. The reported moves point to intensifying competition for elite AI researchers across OpenAI, Anthropic, Meta, and xAI. The shift in core research staff could affect each lab’s ability to build leading AI models, especially as competition at the frontier of model development remains tight. Techub said upcoming model releases from Anthropic, OpenAI, and Google will be a key indicator for judging the practical impact of these personnel changes. The report frames the departures not as isolated hiring events, but as part of a broader battle among top AI labs for scarce technical talent.

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Google DeepMind

Jul 23, 2026

Nobel Laureate John Jumper Leaves DeepMind for Anthropic

John Jumper, the DeepMind scientist who shared the 2024 Nobel Prize in Chemistry for AlphaFold, has announced his departure from Google and plans to join Anthropic.

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Google Brain Drain

Jun 26, 2026

Google's Brain Drain Crisis: Noam Shazeer and John Jumper Leave, AI Giant Morphs Into 'Training Ground' for Rivals

谷歌在2024年以27亿美元回购Transformer论文核心作者Noam Shazeer，但不到两年他再度离开转投OpenAI；AlphaFold之父、诺奖得主John Jumper随后宣布加入Anthropic。一周内至少5位顶级研究者出走，其中4人流向Anthropic。SignalFire数据显示，DeepMind工程师跳槽去Anthropic的概率是反方向的11倍。分析指出，谷歌庞大的组织架构导致决策缓慢、资源分配博弈，天才无法将想法转化为产品，成为AI人才流失的深层原因。

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Bit.Fan