Google DeepMind's top AI researchers leave to build a startup focused on scientific breakthroughs: Here's what it does

Some of Google's brightest AI minds are leaving the company to pursue an even bigger ambition: building AI that can make scientific discoveries on its own. Former Google DeepMind Chief Scientist Jeff Dean, together with Sanjay Ghemawat, Oriol Vinyals and Quoc Le, has launched Discovery Loop, a new AI startup focused on automating scientific and engineering research. The announcement comes alongside a major leadership reshuffle at Google DeepMind, where Demis Hassabis is stepping down as CEO to become Alphabet's Chief Scientist. The move is one of the biggest talent shifts in Google's AI history and comes as competition with OpenAI and Anthropic continues to intensify.

What exactly is Discovery Loop?

Discovery Loop is developing AI systems that do more than answer questions or write code. Its goal is to build autonomous "discovery loops" that can propose experiments, run simulations, analyse results and continuously improve themselves with minimal human involvement.
Initially, the startup will use its own AI to improve machine learning systems. Over time, it plans to apply the same approach to biology, drug discovery, materials science and semiconductor design. According to Jeff Dean, the founders realised AI could eventually automate the entire scientific and engineering process instead of simply assisting researchers.

Why are Google's top researchers leaving?

Jeff Dean spent 27 years at Google and helped build technologies including MapReduce, Bigtable, Google Brain and Gemini. Sanjay Ghemawat co-created much of Google's search infrastructure, while Oriol Vinyals led Gemini research and Quoc Le pioneered Google's AutoML projects. According to WIRED, Alphabet CEO Sundar Pichai tried to persuade the team to remain at Google. Instead, they chose to build a startup where they could move faster and focus entirely on scientific AI. Google will remain a founding investor and provide cloud computing infrastructure during Discovery Loop's early stages.

Why Discovery Loop matters

Discovery Loop is betting that AI's biggest impact will not be chatbots, but accelerating scientific breakthroughs. The founders believe future AI systems could generate original research ideas, test thousands of hypotheses and help scientists solve problems that would otherwise take years. That vision mirrors comments made by AI leaders including Sam Altman, Dario Amodei and Jensen Huang, who argue AI will become a powerful engine for scientific discovery. However, Discovery Loop's founders bring decades of experience building some of the world's most advanced AI systems, giving the startup unique credibility. As Google restructures its AI leadership and rivals race ahead, Discovery Loop could become one of the most closely watched AI startups in the world.