Alphabet’s Google waived a 1.1 billion-pound loan ($1.5 billion) to DeepMind in 2019 after the U.K.-based artificial intelligence lab continued to ramp up the scale of its research and development. From a report: Revenue jumped 158% in 2019, DeepMind said in a financial filing this week. Sales were 265.5 million pounds, up from 102.8 million pounds a year earlier. Its losses also widened, increasing 1.4% to 476.6 million pounds. DeepMind’s parent has agreed to continue funding the company for at least a year after the report’s approval. Alphabet’s Google Ireland unit waived repayments and interest from the loan to help cover DeepMind’s losses. Google acquired DeepMind in 2014 in a 400 million-pound acquisition that gave the Silicon Valley search giant access to cutting edge AI research. DeepMind Chief Executive Officer Demis Hassabis’s goal is to produce general-purpose intelligence that can solve an array of problems. It develops products used by its parent company — like its system for making data centers more energy efficient and a program to improve the accuracy of travel times on Google Maps — as well as AI with broader applications.

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Source: Slashdot – Google Waives .5 Billion DeepMind Loan as AI Costs Mount