Will deep learning really live up to its promise? We don’t actually know. But if it’s going to, it will have to assimilate how classical computer science algorithms work. This is what DeepMind is working on, and its success is important to the eventual uptake of neural networks in wider commercial applications.

Founded in 2010 with the goal of creating AGI — artificial general intelligence, a general purpose AI that truly mimics human intelligence — DeepMind is on the forefront of AI research. The company is also backed by industry heavyweights like Elon Musk and Peter Thiel.

Acquired by Google in 2014, DeepMind has made headlines for projects such as AlphaGo, a program that beat the world champion at the game of Go in a five-game match, and AlphaFold, which found a solution to a 50-year-old grand challenge in biology.

Now DeepMind has set its sights on another grand challenge: bridging the worlds of deep learning and classical computer science to enable deep learning to do everything. If successful, this approach could revolutionize AI and software as we know them.

Petar Veličković is a senior research scientist at DeepMind. His entry into computer science came through algorithmic reasoning and algorithmic thinking using classical algorithms. Since he started doing deep learning research, he has wanted to reconcile deep learning with the classical algorithms that initially got him excited about computer science.

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