Google buys UK artificial intelligence start-up DeepMind

Google has bought UK start-up DeepMind for a reported £400m, making the artificial intelligence firm its largest European acquisition so far.

DeepMind was founded by 37-year-old neuroscientist and former teenage chess prodigy Demis Hassabis, along with Shane Legg and Mustafa Suleyman. The artificial intelligence company specialises in algorithms and machine learning for e-commerce and games.

Demis Hassabis previously led a study at UCL in 2009 that investigated human brains and neural activity, with a focus on combining medical knowledge and technology to help machines to learn and improve performance, just like the human brain.