Alphabet’s DeepMind AI Lab Profits for the First Time

LONDON – DeepMind, one of the world’s leading artificial intelligence labs, made a profit for the first time in history, according to a filing with the UK Companies Register released on Tuesday.

The London-based research firm posted a profit of £ 43.8million ($ 59.6million) in 2020 after recording losses of hundreds of millions in recent years. He reported a loss of $ 649 million in 2019, for example.

DeepMind’s turnover has more than tripled from £ 265.5million in 2019 to £ 826.2million in 2020, according to annual results filed on Companies House. DeepMind, which is owned by Google’s parent company Alphabet, did not provide a specific reason for the revenue increase.

DeepMind does not sell products directly to consumers and has not announced any deals with private companies outside of the Alphabet Umbrella. However, it sells software and services to Alphabet companies including Google, YouTube, and X, which is Moonshot’s division.

A spokesperson for DeepMind told CNBC that the company “powers products and infrastructure that enrich the lives of billions of people through the many collaborations we have worked on with Alphabet over the years.”

Someone in the AI ​​industry, familiar with DeepMind, told CNBC that the rise in revenue could be due to “creative accounting.” DeepMind did not immediately respond when asked to comment on the claim.

“I don’t think DeepMind has a lot or no source of income,” the CNBC source said, asking to remain anonymous due to the nature of the discussion. “So all of this income is based on how much Alphabet pays for internal services, and that can be quite arbitrary.”

Elsewhere, staff costs and other related costs rose slightly from £ 467million to £ 473million, suggesting that DeepMind’s hiring frenzy may have ended.

DeepMind employs some of the world’s leading AI researchers, who can earn annual salaries of over $ 1 million.

These top people, who often have doctorates like Oxford, Cambridge, Stanford, or MIT, can get big packages as they are also sought after by big tech companies like Facebook, Apple, Amazon, and Microsoft.

DeepMind did not say how many people it added to its team in 2020, but said it now employs more than 1,000 people. Last year he said it numbered around 1,000 people.