Comment by logifail
5 days ago
"DeepMind Technologies Limited, trading as Google DeepMind or simply DeepMind, is a British–American artificial intelligence research laboratory which serves as a subsidiary of Alphabet Inc. Founded in the UK in 2010, it was acquired by Google in 2014 and merged with Google AI's Google Brain division to become Google DeepMind in April 2023"
Q: Is the HQ nominally being in London at all relevant given it was acquired by Alphabet/Google? I'm sure the accountants have the tax status all sorted by now...
It's not just the HQ, the only AI researcher I know personally is an American who moved to London to work on AI with DeepMind well after the acquisition.
The registered HQ and a large research center are in London, but ownership, executive control, substantial staffing, a big fraction of the training/serving compute, and the commercialization pathway run through Alphabet's U.S. operations, so the work is, in practical and legal senses, U.S.-based...
See also https://gwern.net/doc/reinforcement-learning/deepmind/2019-d...
"As part of a wider group reorganisation, the Company distributed intellectual property assets which had a nil book value to another group undertaking on 31 October 2019."
Honestly, claiming DeepMind is still some scrappy London-based startup is quite unfortunate :/
> The registered HQ and a large research center are in London ...
> so the work is, in practical and legal senses, U.S.-based...
These two statements literally contradict each other in both cases.
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> Honestly, claiming DeepMind is still some scrappy London-based startup is quite unfortunate :/
Since I didn't do that, I'm not sure how that is relevant or productive.
> work is, in practical and legal senses, U.S.-based...
This seems factually false. The work happening there has to comply with UK laws, not US laws and the practical locus of researchers located there provides a pool of talent that makes it a better place to do an AI startup than places that lack it.
The point is that London is enough of a research hub in AI for it to be worth maintaining a significant research presence there and to even make researchers interested in relocating there.
DeepMind is obviously foriegn owned and controlled now, which does limit the UK's ability to exert control of and profit from it. That only makes weakening the institutions they do control, like ATI, more significant.
+1 Europe (especially) and the UK largely don't matter - it's a battle between the US and China, the gap will only grow wider and faster than it already has (and it's already getting really noticeable).
I attribute it mostly to a cultural problem and I don't think they can fix their politics from the downward spiral they're on. It's why they have a number that rounds to zero of billion dollar software companies and why all their ambitious people do their best to get to the US.
a lot of the researchers are still in london
Also in general Google satellite offices often house the engineers of acquired startups who don't want to move to the mothership. It's not their primary purpose but it's one of the things they use them for.
> in general Google satellite offices often house the engineers of acquired startups who don't want to move to the mothership
Would it be unfair to ask if (in this instance the UK's) satellite country taxpayers are subsidising corporate offices when the overall structures are arranged such that any overall corporation tax payable will be paid in the lowest-possible jurisdiction?
See - for instance - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corporation_tax_in_the_Republi...
I understand that iPhones are assembled in China, India and Vietnam. Would those countries issue press releases on "their leadership in iPhones"?
I'm sure representatives of those countries love to say so, especially when talking to third parties about their expertise in manufacturing: "Yes, here in Zhengzhou, CN we're leaders in electronics manufacturing - the iPhone is assembled here at Foxconn!"
However, Apple (headquartered in the US) loves to issue press releases describing how their products are "Designed by Apple in California[, USA]" even though a lot of work in the manufacturing, the software, and the design of subcomponents (or major components, I don't know how Apple is organized internally) are done in China, India and Vietnam as you listed.
I'd argue that in the same way that Shenzen and Zhengzhou are leaders in electronics assembly because the bulk of the iPhone and other products are built there, regardless of the location of the headquarters of Apple, so to can London claim to be a leader in AI because the researchers for DeepMind are located in London, regardless of who owns the DeepMind brand.
Buying a thing from another country doesn't make your location a leader in that thing.
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China, India and Vietnam absolutely lead in manufacturing iphones, yes.
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But in this case Deepmind's assembly (plugging in datacenter cables, etc.) is largely done in the US.