PeopleofSuperintelligence

Lab leader

Demis Hassabis

As of October 2026, Demis Hassabis is chair of Google DeepMind and chief scientist of Alphabet. He continues to lead Isomorphic Labs. His early career included chess, programming, and work on Theme Park, followed by computer-science study, game development, and a UCL neuroscience doctorate. He cofounded DeepMind in 2010. The laboratory's teams developed AlphaGo and AlphaFold, which brought learning systems into Go and protein-structure prediction. Hassabis and John Jumper jointly received half of the 2024 Nobel Prize in Chemistry; David Baker received the other half. Koray Kavukcuoglu leads daily DeepMind operations.

Now at
Google DeepMind and Isomorphic Labs
Works
180
Citations
189,880
h-index
92

Publication numbers from OpenAlex, as of 14 October 2026.

Photo of Demis Hassabis

Timeline

  1. Cambridge, game development and UCL; PhD in 2009

    Studying how minds work

    He studies computer science, develops games, and completes a UCL neuroscience doctorate in 2009.

  2. 2010–2014

    Building DeepMind

    He helps found DeepMind; Google acquires the company in 2014.

  3. 2015–2016

    An audience around a Go board

    DeepMind's AlphaGo team defeats Fan Hui and later Lee Sedol.

  4. 2024

    A shared Nobel Prize

    He and John Jumper share half of the chemistry Nobel Prize for protein-structure prediction.

  5. As of 10 October 2026

    A new strategic role

    He is DeepMind chair and Alphabet chief scientist, while Koray Kavukcuoglu leads daily operations.

Sources and credits

Photo: John Sears, via Wikimedia Commons. License: CC BY-SA 4.0. Source: commons.wikimedia.org. Cropped to a square and resized. Ask us to remove or replace this photo.

  1. Royal Society: Demis Hassabis biography royalsociety.org. Checked 10 October 2026.
  2. UCL: Hassabis's lecture and education, 13 December 2023 ucl.ac.uk. Checked 10 October 2026.
  3. UK government: historical Hassabis biography gov.uk. Checked 10 October 2026.
  4. Google DeepMind: AlphaGo project history deepmind.google. Checked 10 October 2026.
  5. DeepMind: AlphaFold and the 2020 CASP assessment deepmind.google. Checked 10 October 2026.
  6. Google: bringing DeepMind and Brain together, 20 April 2023 blog.google. Checked 10 October 2026.
  7. Nobel Prize in Chemistry 2024: official press release nobelprize.org. Checked 10 October 2026.
  8. Google DeepMind: Nobel announcement, 9 October 2024 deepmind.google. Checked 10 October 2026.
  9. Google: The next chapter of our AI momentum blog.google. Checked 10 October 2026.