Alphabet merges DeepMind and Google Brain AI research units

Alphabet is combining its DeepMind and Google Brain AI research units, ending a long-running internal rivalry between the London and Silicon Valley-based groups as it tries to make up lost ground in generative AI against Microsoft and OpenAI.

The shake-up will leave Demis Hassabis, the British head of DeepMind, in charge of an expanded group that can lay claim to many of the research breakthroughs that have turned AI into the industry’s most important new technology since the arrival of the internet.