PeopleofSuperintelligence

Researcher

Nando de Freitas

Nando de Freitas is a researcher whose papers cover deep reinforcement learning and generative interactive environments. He completes a PhD at Trinity College, Cambridge, in 2000 and becomes a professor at the University of British Columbia in 2001. In 2014 DeepMind acquires Dark Blue Labs, a startup whose academics include him. His dueling network paper wins an ICML best paper award in 2016, and Genie wins one in 2024. In September 2024 he joins Microsoft AI as VP of AI, and in September 2026 he is in talks to raise money for Revolution Labs.

Now at
Microsoft
Works
249
Citations
27,898
h-index
58

Publication numbers from OpenAlex, as of 14 October 2026.

Photo of Nando de Freitas

Timeline

  1. 1991–2000

    A PhD at Trinity College

    He studies at the University of the Witwatersrand, then completes a PhD at Trinity College, Cambridge, in 2000.

  2. 2001–2013

    Professor at British Columbia

    He becomes a professor at the University of British Columbia in 2001. His paper on Bayesian optimization in high dimensions receives an IJCAI award in 2013.

  3. 2014

    Dark Blue Labs joins DeepMind

    He joins DeepMind in 2014, when the company acquires Oxford spinoff Dark Blue Labs, and he is one of the academics behind it.

  4. 2016

    Dueling networks at ICML

    He co-authors the dueling network paper on deep reinforcement learning, which wins an ICML best paper award in 2016.

  5. 2024

    Genie wins a best paper

    He co-authors Genie, a generative interactive environment, which wins a best paper award at ICML in 2024.

  6. September 2024

    Vice president at Microsoft AI

    He joins Microsoft AI as VP of AI in September 2024.

  7. September 2026

    Talks to fund Revolution Labs

    In September 2026 he is in talks to raise at least $100 million for Revolution Labs, a startup built around diffusion models.

Sources and credits

Photo: cs.ox.ac.uk; Nando de Freitas | Department of Computer Science; creator not stated. License: Not stated by source. Source: cs.ox.ac.uk. Cropped to a square and resized. Ask us to remove or replace this photo.

  1. Nando de Freitas - Wikipedia en.wikipedia.org. Checked 14 October 2026.
  2. Nando de Freitas cs.ubc.ca. Checked 14 October 2026.
  3. Google's DeepMind Acqui-Hires Two AI Teams In The UK, Partners With Oxford | TechCrunch techcrunch.com. Checked 14 October 2026.
  4. ICML 2016 & Research at Google research.google. Checked 14 October 2026.
  5. [1511.06581] Dueling Network Architectures for Deep Reinforcement Learning arxiv.org. Checked 14 October 2026.
  6. ICML Oral Genie: Generative Interactive Environments icml.cc. Checked 14 October 2026.
  7. [2402.15391] Genie: Generative Interactive Environments arxiv.org. Checked 14 October 2026.
  8. DeepMind Alumni Line Up VC Cash for Non-LLM AI Startups | AI Weekly aiweekly.co. Checked 14 October 2026.