Demis Hassabis

Games and neuroscience

Demis Hassabis began his career in computer games at Bullfrog Productions, where he co-created Theme Park at the age of 17^[1]. Theme Park was a simulation game in which players design and run their own amusement parks^[1]. He was then a founding member of Lionhead Studios and lead AI programmer on the game Black & White^[1].

Hassabis earned a BA in computer science from Queens' College, University of Cambridge, studying there from 1994 to 1997^[1]. From 1998 to 2005 he was founder and chief executive of Elixir Studios in London, which made games for publishers including Eidos, Microsoft and Vivendi Universal^[1].

He then returned to academia for a PhD in cognitive neuroscience at the Institute of Neurology, University College London, from 2005 to 2009^[1]. His doctoral work with Eleanor Maguire focused on the neural mechanisms behind imagination and memory^[1]. From 2009 to 2010 he held a Sir Henry Wellcome Fellowship as a postdoctoral researcher jointly at UCL's Gatsby Unit, the McGovern Institute at MIT and the psychology department at Harvard^[1].

DeepMind and Google DeepMind

Hassabis co-founded DeepMind in 2010^[1][2]. The lab took an interdisciplinary approach to building general AI systems, drawing on machine learning, neuroscience, engineering, mathematics and simulation^[2]. One of its early results was DQN, a program that learned to play 49 Atari games from raw screen pixels and the score^[2]. Hassabis is a co-author of the Nature paper describing that work, published in February 2015^[5].

DeepMind's AlphaGo was the first computer program to defeat a Go world champion^[2]. Hassabis is a co-author of the January 2016 Nature paper on AlphaGo, Mastering the game of Go with deep neural networks and tree search^[6].

Google DeepMind brought together the Google Brain and DeepMind teams into a single unit, which Hassabis led as chief executive^[2]. On 5 August 2026 Alphabet said he would give up the CEO title to become chairman of Google DeepMind and chief scientist of Alphabet^[10]. Koray Kavukcuoglu took over daily operations as senior vice president, reporting to Sundar Pichai^[10]. CNBC reported that Hassabis wanted to work on strategic and global AGI matters, advise Kavukcuoglu and spend more time at Isomorphic Labs^[11].

AlphaFold and the Nobel Prize

In 2020 DeepMind launched AlphaFold, an AI system that predicts 3D models of protein structures^[2]. The paper Highly accurate protein structure prediction with AlphaFold, with Hassabis among its authors, was published in Nature in 2021^[7]. According to the Nobel Prize organisation, Hassabis and John Jumper used AlphaFold2 to predict the structure of virtually all known proteins^[3].

Hassabis and Jumper were co-awarded the 2024 Nobel Prize in Chemistry "for protein structure prediction", with Hassabis receiving a quarter share^[3][4]. David Baker shared the prize for computational protein design^[4]. Google DeepMind said in October 2024 that AlphaFold's predictions, made freely available through the AlphaFold Protein Structure Database, had been used by more than 2 million researchers in 190 countries^[4]. The same announcement listed earlier awards for AlphaFold, including the 2023 Albert Lasker Basic Medical Research Award and the 2023 Breakthrough Prize in Life Sciences^[4].

Isomorphic Labs

Isomorphic Labs, an AI drug discovery company, was spun out of DeepMind in 2021, and Hassabis is its founder and CEO^[8][12]. In March 2025 it raised $600 million in its first external funding round, led by Thrive Capital with GV and Alphabet taking part^[8]. On 12 May 2026 the company announced a $2.1 billion Series B round, also led by Thrive Capital, with new investors including MGX, Temasek, CapitalG and the UK Sovereign AI Fund^[9]. The company said the money would support its AI drug design engine, IsoDDE, and its pipeline of drug candidates^[9].

In a December interview with CNBC's podcast The Tech Download, Hassabis said AI would eventually become "the ultimate tool for science"^[11]. In his August 2026 note to staff about his new role, he wrote that he believes AGI is close at hand^[10][11].

Known for

• Co-founding DeepMind
• AlphaGo and AlphaFold
• 2024 Nobel Prize in Chemistry
• Founding Isomorphic Labs
• Co-creating the game Theme Park

Sources

1. Academia Europaea: Demis Hassabis, curriculum vitae — checked 6 Nov 2026
2. Google DeepMind: About — checked 6 Nov 2026
3. NobelPrize.org: Demis Hassabis, facts, Nobel Prize in Chemistry 2024 — checked 6 Nov 2026
4. Google DeepMind blog: Demis Hassabis and John Jumper awarded Nobel Prize in Chemistry, October 2024 — checked 6 Nov 2026
5. Nature: Human-level control through deep reinforcement learning, February 2015 — checked 6 Nov 2026
6. Nature: Mastering the game of Go with deep neural networks and tree search, January 2016 — checked 6 Nov 2026
7. Nature: Highly accurate protein structure prediction with AlphaFold, 2021 — checked 6 Nov 2026
8. TechCrunch: Isomorphic Labs raises $600M from Thrive, March 2025 — checked 6 Nov 2026
9. Isomorphic Labs: Series B investment round, May 2026 — checked 6 Nov 2026
10. Fortune: Demis Hassabis steps down from Google DeepMind CEO role, August 2026 — checked 6 Nov 2026
11. CNBC: Demis Hassabis' new Google DeepMind role explained, August 2026 — checked 6 Nov 2026
12. Isomorphic Labs: home page — checked 6 Nov 2026