Smash Notes

Back to Sundar Pichai on what's next for Google Gemini, Waymo, and data centers in space, with Sundar Pichai.

Why Did Google Change Who Runs DeepMind?

Sundar Pichai says Google changed who runs frontier models at DeepMind because that work has become an all-consuming job of its own. It is moving, it is picking up pace, and it runs from data to compute to the algorithms to the teams and the model agents.

Jeff Dean spent 27 years at Google. Sundar Pichai says he is proud of that work, Jeff Dean wanted to go build something he was excited about with a set of people, and Google is excited to see what he does with Discovery Loop.

Demis Hassabis has been thinking about this frontier moment for a long time. Sundar Pichai says Demis Hassabis wants more of his time on getting through it safely and on applying AI to other problems, the work behind AlphaFold and Isomorphic, including medicine and drug discovery. Demis Hassabis stays chair of DeepMind and is also spending more time on AI security, science, and healthcare. Someone who has been at DeepMind for well over a decade is stepping up to run frontier model development.

Transcript

Sundar Pichai on what's next for Google Gemini, Waymo, and data centers in space ·

Sources with Alex Heath

More from this episode

  1. How Many Tokens Did Gemini 4 Use in 72 Hours?Sundar Pichai says Gemini 4 Argon drew almost 25 trillion tokens in the first 72 hours after launch, about 3 times what Gemini 3.0 saw in that same window.
  2. How Do Google Researchers Co-work With Models?Sundar Pichai says Google is definitely at a stage where AI researchers co-work with the models in a deep way.
  3. Why Is Google Investing After Free Cash Flow Went Negative?Sundar Pichai says the resolve to keep investing comes from the strength and durability of demand, from consumer products through to enterprise.
  4. Who Still Makes Google's Compute Decisions?Sundar Pichai says the big compute decisions are still made by people in the loop, including him.
  5. Why Do AI Agents Use Web Browsers?Sundar Pichai says agents will keep using browsers and computers because a person would do the same thing, and because that makes it easier to keep the user…
  6. Why Is Google Putting AI Data Centers in Space?Sundar Pichai says Project Suncatcher is Google's pilot, with Planet Labs and SpaceX, for AI data centers in space. Alex Heath asked whether it was still up.
  7. How Many Paid Rides Does Waymo Do Each Week?Sundar Pichai says Waymo just crossed half a million paid rides per week. The team is focused on scaling that number.
  8. When Will Quantum Have Practical Commercial Uses?Sundar Pichai says he genuinely sees practical commercial applications for quantum in a five-year time frame.

People

More answers like this

More with Sundar Pichai

More with Alex Heath

Related episodes

Plays from this note through the rest of the episode.

Note

Weekly highlights

One letter a week.

The notes worth hearing, with the minute they were said.