How DeepMind and Brain merger will help Google tackle OpenAI
The higher-ups in Google are unhappy with the company playing catch-up to OpenAI and Microsoft in the AI race. The company has been making multiple moves to gain momentum. Project Magi, AI in ads, and now, Google DeepMind, a new unit made by consolidating DeepMind and Google Brain. Let's take a look at how this new division would impact Google's future endeavors in AI.
Why does this story matter?
Google's cautious approach to AI cost the company a chance to lead the AI race from the get-go. The company has now decided to throw caution to the wind. The unsuccessful and underwhelming debut of Google Bard has been a hard pill to swallow for the tech giant. We have seen an aggressive Google since then. The new merger is another sign of that.
Google DeepMind will create powerful, multimodal AI models
DeepMind and Google Brain have made some significant contributions to AI research over the years. Announcing the merger through a blog post, Alphabet CEO Sundar Pichai said the combined group "will significantly accelerate" Google's progress in AI. Google DeepMind's main priority will be to create "a series of powerful, multimodal AI models," Pichai added.
Google Brain researchers invented the Transformer architecture
Google's chief competitor in AI research and development is OpenAI. The latter's GPT-4 has proved to be a significant roadblock to Google's AI ambitions. Do you know what powers GPT-4 and most of the other advanced large language models in the market? The Transformer architecture. This new way of designing neural networks was invented by researchers at Google Brain in 2017.
DeepMind and Google Brain have developed groundbreaking neural networks
Both DeepMind and Google Brain have developed several groundbreaking neural network models that enhanced AI research by miles. Google Brain's TensorFlow toolkit for building AI models and DeepMind's AlphaFold that can predict structures of proteins are a few of the duo's contributions to AI research. A combination of Google Brain and DeepMind is a match made in heaven, at least on paper.
They have been working on new model to trump GPT-4
Historically, Google Brain and DeepMind have worked separately. DeepMind has even butted heads with Google-parent Alphabet over its autonomy. However, last month The Information reported the two groups working together to develop a model to trump OpenAI's GPT-4. Dubbed Gemini, it is expected to feature about a trillion parameters. Now that the merger is official, we should see more from them.
A combination of best minds in AI should help Google
Google DeepMind's focus will be on developing revenue-generating AI models. A combination of some of the best minds in AI research should give the company an advantage in the research and development of advanced models. The company decided to band them together so that it does not miss out as it did with AI chatbots. This merger is probably what Google desperately needs.
