Is DeepMind a non profit? Let’s look at the company’s finances to get a better idea of the financial status. The company has benefited greatly from Google’s decision to limit autonomy in AI projects. Google capped the price of their cloud AI services a few years ago and licensed GPT-3 to Microsoft for commercial purposes.
This year, DeepMind’s expenses have risen 8 per cent to PS780 million, up PS63 million since 2017. Its costs include staff salaries, computer infrastructure, and other related charges.
It’s a good question to ask whether the company’s current operations and research costs are sustainable without the support of Google. Google has repeatedly stated that its future lies in AI. But there’s a catch: DeepMind’s research will be heavily scrutinized by Google. It will become increasingly dependent on Google for funding and services, which may make it harder to develop new products and ventures. If DeepMind continues to lose money, it may be better off focusing on more profitable ventures.
If DeepMind is a non-profit, it is a corporation with a low profit margin. The company is dependent on Alphabet for funding, and thus makes 100% of its profits. In 2017, DeepMind made PS43.8 million in revenue, while it lost $680 million a year. In 2019 alone, Alphabet wrote off $1.5 billion in debt to DeepMind, and in 2020 it posted a pre-tax profit of PS63 million, despite losing $649 million in revenue.
The company’s Phaidra AI technology was used in chemical engineering and industrial manufacturing projects, and the technology has been used for climate change research. Jack Kelly, a former employee of DeepMind, has founded Open Climate Fix, a nonprofit focused on using AI to combat climate change. Open Climate Fix has been backed by Nvidia, Google, and the Alan Turing Institute. The organization’s mission is to help reduce greenhouse gas emissions on a massive scale.
While many AI companies are a for-profit company, DeepMind’s AI research doesn’t translate into profit-making ventures. The company recently purchased a reinforcement learning system called AlphaStar that mastered the real-time strategy game StarCraft 2. However, AlphaStar’s underlying technology has no use in applied AI without some kind of repurposing. This is the reason why DeepMind’s research has become so controversial.
The founders of DeepMind have a long list of past successes. One of them is Lila Ross, a microprocessor engineer. Lila also helped grow several of the world’s leading technology companies. Ross, for example, was the first executive at Coursera and helped bring education to millions of people. Lila is responsible for the company’s technology infrastructure. In addition, she is the chair of Team4Tech, a non-profit dedicated to advancing education technology. Andreessen Horowitz and Mosaic Ventures have also invested in both DeepMind and other similar companies.
Staff costs rose by PS467 million in 2019, but DeepMind did not disclose the number of new hires in 2019 or 2020. It is now estimated that the company will have over 1,000 employees, including some of the world’s leading AI research scientists. These researchers can command salary figures of up to $1 million per year. The company’s profit numbers have bolstered Google’s investment in DeepMind. The company waived PS1.1 billion of DeepMind’s outstanding debt and accrued interest amounts, and it promised adequate financial support for the next 12 months.
The organization’s founders are committed to making the world a better place through advanced technologies. OpenAI has realized that not everyone has access to everything, and deepfakes, which use AI to fake videos and photos, are an example of this. The company has recently released its own artificial intelligence (AI) program known as GPT-2, which enables it to write news articles. It recently beat an esports world champion team.
AlphaFold, in particular, holds great promise in helping combat diseases that receive minimal research funding. Since the algorithm works by studying the structure of proteins, it will impact medical research, bioengineering, and even medicine. It has already been used to predict the structure of the protein in an unrivaled amount of cases. Whether or not DeepMind will eventually get its Nobel Prize for this breakthrough is a matter of time. However, it should not be overlooked, as it has already accomplished an impressive feat.