The alarm bells after Mustafa Suleyman put off DeepMind

The London tech crowd speaks this morning of the news that DeepMind's Mustafa Suleyman has been on leave.

The big question – and one that remains unanswered – is whether this unexpected initiative signals a gap between the Google parent company and the London-based AI center that she bought in 2014.

Suleyman, who participated in the founding of DeepMind alongside his childhood friend Demis Hassabis in 2010, is a thoughtful, outspoken and flamboyant character who has often played the role of public face of society (podcast here). He leads DeepMind's applied division, which uses machine learning to solve real-world problems in areas such as health and energy.

Bloomberg broke the story last night. A spokesman for DeepMind confirmed the story and told Sifted, "Mustafa is taking time now, after 10 hectic years."

While DeepMind was trying to minimize rumors of unrest at the top of society, the curious wording of the story has sparked speculation about the tension between Google and DeepMind on the commercialization of AI.

the FT recently reported that DeepMind's losses increased 55% to £ 470 million last year, while Google continued to pay money into AI research. Google has increasingly looked for ways to take advantage of the pioneering DeepMind research.

Last November, Google announced that it would integrate the health business of DeepMind, a company of 100 people, into the health branch of the parent company. This situation followed controversy surrounding DeepMind's use of health data in a partnership with the Royal Free Hospital.

DeepMind's pure research arm contains one of the largest concentrations of artificial intelligence talent on the planet dedicated to the search for a general artificial intelligence. "Our mission should be one of the most fascinating journeys in science," Hassabis said. Wired magazine. "We are trying to build a science-oriented cathedral."

The success of DeepMind's AlphaGo in 2016 when it beat Lee Sedol, one of the most powerful Go players in the world, generated a huge amount of publicity – and good movie. She has also firmly placed London on the map as one of the leading centers of research on AI.