DeepMind opens first automated lab in UK to accelerate AI discovery

Google’s DeepMind will be launching its first research lab in its new search for new materials, such as those used in batteries and semiconductors, as part of a wider push to push artificial intelligence into research in science. 

The facility, which is set to open in the UK next year, is key to a broad agreement with the British government, Alphabet Inc.’s Google said on Thursday. 

AI models like Gemini to support scientists, teachers, and the public sector

In agreement, several of Google’s AI models, including DeepMind’s Gemini, will be tailored for use with scientists, teachers and public sector employees. 

This development comes as Google DeepMind CEO Demis Hassabis recently stated that scaling the current systems must be pushed to the maximum, as it will be a key component of the final AGI system at the very least.

AGI, or artificial general intelligence, is a still theoretical version of AI that reasons as well as humans. It’s the goal all the leading AI companies are competing to reach, fueling significant amounts of spending on infrastructure and talent.

According to AI scaling laws, the more data and compute an AI model is given, the smarter it will become. Hassabis noted that scaling alone will likely get the industry to AGI, but that he suspects there will need to be”one or two” other breakthroughs as well.

UK partnership pushes Google’s cloud strategy

DeepMind stated that the lab was its first “automated” laboratory, utilizing robotics to conduct experiments with minimal human intervention. No financial details or staffing numbers were made public. 

The tie-up represents a significant strategic boost for Google in marketing its cloud offerings and Gemini AI model domestically, competing against Microsoft and OpenAI, which are direct competitors for government business. 

It also speaks to DeepMind’s continued concentration on materials science, one of the company’s research priorities. Several startups — including those with founders from the original DeepMind company — are exploring how AI can accelerate the discovery of new materials, potentially reducing costs and development time. 

DeepMind aims to research materials that could enhance medical imaging, solar panels, and semiconductor chips in its new lab. British scientists will also be granted “priority access” to four of DeepMind’s scientific AI models, including tools used for DNA analysis and weather prediction. “Discovering new materials is one of the most important pursuits in science,” said DeepMind CEO  in a blog post signed by fellow executives. 

The UK government also stated that the lab will contribute to fields such as fusion energy and will be responsible for developing AI-based tools for teachers via Gemini. Additionally, DeepMind stated that it will share its proprietary models and data with the UK AI Security Institute, a government agency established in 2023 to test and evaluate AI systems. 

Google’s announcement comes on top of the company’s own detailed plan, announced in September, to deploy a massive £5 billion (approximately $6.7 billion) investment in the UK over the next two years for data centres and operations, a fraction of the company’s global spending.

Meanwhile, Artificial intelligence start-up DeepSeek has recently launched its most powerful model variant, DeepSeek-V3.2-Speciale, which is said to match Google DeepMind’s new Gemini 3 Pro model in certain tasks, despite the Chinese firm having limited access to advanced semiconductor chips. This step by the open-source lab has sparked extensive discussion within the AI research community as it coincides with the prestigious annual Conference on Neural Information Processing Systems, or NeurIPS.

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