Jeff Dean, Google’s long-time chief scientist, has launched a new artificial intelligence startup, Discovery Loop, alongside long-time Google colleagues Sanjay Ghemawat, Oriol Vinyals and Quoc Le. All four founders most recently held senior AI and engineering roles at Google and have worked together for years on the company’s AI models, products and computing infrastructure.
The new venture has been established as a Public Benefit Corporation with a mission to develop AI systems that accelerate scientific and engineering breakthroughs by automating the discovery process. The launch comes as AI companies increasingly focus on applying artificial intelligence beyond traditional enterprise use cases to research and scientific innovation.
Announcing the startup on X, Dean wrote, “We are founding Discovery Loop… a Public Benefit Corporation whose mission is to automate machine learning, science, and engineering to accelerate discoveries and progress.” He added that the four founders have worked together for between 14 and 30 years, helping build Google’s AI models, products and computing infrastructure.
According to the company’s official website, Discovery Loop is developing AI systems capable of automating the iterative process of scientific discovery. Its research agenda includes generating hypotheses, designing experiments, analysing results and refining subsequent iterations to speed up progress across machine learning, science and engineering.
The company also plans to create AI systems that assist researchers throughout the entire discovery lifecycle. It will initially focus on machine learning research before expanding its technology to broader scientific and engineering disciplines.
The launch of Discovery Loop reflects growing interest in using AI to automate complex research workflows, potentially enabling scientists and engineers to accelerate experimentation and innovation across multiple fields.
Separately, Alphabet has announced a leadership change within its AI organisation. Demis Hassabis will assume the newly created role of Alphabet’s chief scientist while transitioning from his position as Google DeepMind CEO to become the company’s chairman, according to a memo sent to staff.
With a founding team that has played a significant role in Google’s AI evolution, Discovery Loop aims to build next-generation AI systems designed to support scientific discovery and engineering research, marking a new chapter in the application of artificial intelligence beyond commercial software.
