Google AI Veteran Jeff Dean with four of his researcher friends leave after 27 years to launch discovery loop.

After nearly 27 years at Google, veteran AI researcher Jeff Dean is leaving the company to launch a new startup called Discovery Loop. He is co-founding the venture alongside Sanjay Ghemawat and two other prominent AI researchers. Google is expected to take a stake in the new company, even as Dean’s departure marks the loss of one of the search giant’s most influential AI leaders at a time when it is racing to keep pace with rapidly advancing rival AI models.

Among those joining the new venture are Oriol Vinyals, DeepMind’s Vice President of Research and a technical lead for Gemini, and Quoc Le, a Google Brain co-founder and the scientist behind AutoML-Zero, Google’s project that uses machine learning to autonomously build AI systems.

According to reports, the team has already outlined a roadmap for Discovery Loop. The startup will initially focus on developing advanced machine learning algorithms that can serve as the foundation for AI systems capable of solving increasingly complex problems across multiple domains.

Over time, Discovery Loop aims to apply these AI systems to fields including semiconductor chip design, biology, drug discovery and materials science.

The startup will operate in two areas where Google has also invested heavily. Through DeepMind, Google has advanced AI-driven drug discovery with AlphaFold and has used AI-based optimisation techniques in the design of its Tensor Processing Unit (TPU) chips.

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The pharmaceutical industry has seen significant investment in AI-powered drug discovery, with companies such as Recursion Pharmaceuticals and Insitro developing AI platforms to identify new drug candidates. At the same time, AI companies are increasingly investing in in-house chip design as demand for AI infrastructure continues to grow.

Jeff Dean’s departure also reflects a broader trend of prominent AI researchers leaving established technology companies to launch startups. While Discovery Loop has not disclosed its funding plans, the company is expected to compete in the rapidly expanding fields of AI-assisted drug discovery and AI-driven semiconductor design.