Google grows cloud business by 82 percent as Hassabis steps back from DeepMind

Google’s cloud business grew by 82 percent in the second quarter, according to CNBC’s reporting. A figure that, for the US outlet, reinforces the company’s priority on computing infrastructure over frontier artificial intelligence research.

In the same period, Demis Hassabis stepped back from the day-to-day management of DeepMind, Google’s artificial intelligence research division. The available sources do not specify who has taken over the operational responsibilities left by Hassabis, nor whether his stepping back also affects the public and representative role he has held for the company until now.

The combination of robust cloud growth and the repositioning of a key figure in internal research points, according to CNBC’s reading, to a shift in priorities within Google: infrastructure that generates immediate revenue is gaining weight over laboratories dedicated to more experimental research. The sources do not, however, provide data on the absolute revenue generated by the cloud business nor a comparison with the growth recorded by main competitors in the same quarter.

It is not specified, in the available sources, whether Hassabis’s stepping back from day-to-day management also implies a change in DeepMind’s research strategy, or whether it is merely an internal reorganization of managerial duties. The question of what practical effects this change will have on the company’s research activities in the coming months therefore remains open.

The news currently comes from a single source, CNBC’s reporting; there is no independent confirmation of the cloud growth data or of the details regarding Hassabis’s new role.

The 82 percent growth in the cloud business remains, based on currently available sources, the most concrete data point for measuring the direction the company is taking at this stage.