Google Brain
Google Brain was Google’s AI research team, co-founded by Jeff Dean and others in 2011. It open-sourced the TensorFlow machine learning system in 2015 and was merged with DeepMindGoogle DeepMindGoogle DeepMind is Google’s artificial intelligence research organization, formed in April 2023 by merging DeepMind, which Google acquired in 2014, with the Brain team from Google Research, and led by CEO Demis Hassabis. It developed AlphaGo, AlphaFold, and the Gemini family of models, and Hassabis and John Jumper received the 2024 Nobel Prize in Chemistry for AlphaFold’s protein structure prediction work.Open the full entry into Google DeepMind in April 2023.
Contents9 sections
Key facts
2011Co-founded by Jeff Dean and Others
Jeff Dean writes on his Google Research page that he co-founded the Google Brain project and team in 2011, focused on making progress toward intelligent machines.[1]
June 2012A Neural Network Learns to Detect Cats
On June 26, 2012, NPR’s All Things Considered covered an experiment at Google’s X Labs: researchers built a network of 16,000 computer processors designed to emulate the powers of the human brain, and after three days on 10 million YouTubeYouTubeYouTube is Google’s video-sharing and creator platform, founded in 2005 by Steve Chen, Chad Hurley, and Jawed Karim and acquired by Google in 2006. Built around video uploading, viewing, and creator earnings, the platform has developed Shorts, YouTube Music, Premium, YouTube TV, and products for children, and is headquartered in San Bruno, California, United States.Open the full entry clips it learned to recognize a cat. The research team was led by Andrew Ng, a Stanford professor and Google research partner.[2]
November 2015Open-Sources TensorFlow
On November 9, 2015, Sundar Pichai announced that Google was open-sourcing TensorFlow, saying it was faster and more flexible than Google’s first-generation system and could build and train neural nets up to five times faster; it was already used in speech recognition in the Google app, Smart Reply in Inbox and search in Google Photos.[3]
The Brain team said it had open-sourced this initial version of TensorFlow, which became the most popular machine learning project on GitHub in 2016.[4]
2016Rebuilding Google Translate and Launching the Residency
In 2016 the Brain team worked with the Google Translate team to replace the algorithms behind Google Translate with an end-to-end learned system; that June it welcomed its first class of 27 Google Brain Residents, selected from more than 2,200 applicants.[4]
September 2017Describes Its Approach to Research
In September 2017 Jeff Dean stated the team’s mission as “Make machines intelligent. Improve people’s lives.” and said the team carries out long-term, open research, with researchers setting their own agendas.[5]
April 20, 2023Merged with DeepMind into Google DeepMind
On April 20, 2023, Google DeepMind CEO Demis Hassabis announced in a note to employees that DeepMind and the Brain team from Google Research would join forces as a single unit called Google DeepMind; the announcement said the two teams had laid much of the foundations of the current AI industry, from deep reinforcement learning to Transformers.[6]
As of October 2026: Jeff Dean as Chief Scientist
As of October 2026, Jeff Dean is Google’s Chief Scientist, focusing on AI advances for Google DeepMind and Google Research.[1]
Related Organizations, Websites, and Public Accounts
Google Research: Official website: https://research.google/ (opens in a new window)[4]
Google DeepMind: Official website: https://deepmind.google/ (opens in a new window)[6]
Sources
- Jeff Dean (opens in a new window)
- A Massive Google Network Learns To Identify Cats (opens in a new window)
- TensorFlow: smarter machine learning, for everyone (opens in a new window)
- The Google Brain Team — Looking Back on 2016 (opens in a new window)
- The Google Brain Team’s Approach to Research (opens in a new window)
- Announcing Google DeepMind (opens in a new window)