Google has shut down DeepMind's AlphaFold program, according to Financial Times (pay wall). Some of the award-winning team have been reassigned, while others have left Google, as the company focuses on Gemini.
What is (was) AlphaFold?
The AlphaFold program in action. | Image by Google
AlphaFold was developed in 2018 as part of the DeepMind AI project. The program solved a huge problem in chemistry — protein folding. Predicting how proteins fold into 3D structures from amino acid sequences can take years, as the process is insanely complex, but AlphaFold algorithms cut down the time to mere minutes.
Over the past 50 years, scientists had mapped the structure of around 170,000 proteins using MRI and X-ray techniques. AlphaFold took this information and fed it to an AI algorithm to train it.
The project was hugely successful. In 2021 DeepMind launched the AlphaFold Protein Structure Database, a massive 200 million protein structure predictions database, free for all researchers across the world.
Three years later, in 2024, DeepMind CEO Demis Hassabis and John Jumper won the Nobel Prize in Chemistry for their work on AlphaFold.
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Would you give up Gemini for better and faster drug discoveries?
Why is folding proteins a big deal?
The complex 3D protein structure determines the biological role of the protein. | Image by Drug Design Org
AlphaFold is widely recognized as a solution to humanity's 50-year-old protein folding problem. Amino acids automatically fold into complex protein structures, and the precise shape determines the biological role of the protein.
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Having an algorithm that can do these predictions in minutes is a real breakthrough. The project is already used in drug discovery, developing vaccines, and studying neurodegenerative diseases like Alzheimer's and Parkinson's.
Prior to AlphaFold, scientists had to wait weeks for these processes to unfold (or fold, pun intended) in petri dishes or run complex simulations on supercomputers that took days and cost a fortune.
Google is shutting down the project as its focus shifts
Google need more resources poured into Gemini. | Image by Google
Last month Nobel Prize laureate John Jumper announced that he was leaving DeepMind to join Anthropic. He took a couple of colleagues with him.
Speaking before the Times, a DeepMind representative confirmed that Google moved the rest of the staff internally to Gemini-focused projects.
Our strategy over the last nine years has been to focus on grand challenges... a concrete goal every project is focused on
- Pushmeet Kohli, the VP of research at Google DeepMind.
Our colleagues at the Times note that this move represents Google's shift toward putting more resources into developing Gemini.
Not all is lost. What happens next?
The project database will remain open and some staff were reassigned to Alphabet's drug-discovery company, Isomorphic Labs. | Image by Pexels
Let's not immediately flood the streets in protest that Gemini is preventing finding a cure for cancer. The situation is more nuanced than this. First of all, AlphaFold and the 200-million protein fold prediction database are still out there.
And second, some of the former staff members of the AlphaFold project were reassigned to Alphabet's drug-discovery company, Isomorphic Labs. So, they will keep working on developing new drugs and curing diseases.
What's a little worrying is that such a successful project is dismantled in order for Google to focus on Gemini, an AI agent that could (or could not) make your day a tad easier. Even a Noble Prize-winning team is not safe from the latest AI turbulence, it seems.
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Mariyan, a tech enthusiast with a background in Nuclear Physics and Journalism, brings a unique perspective to PhoneArena. His childhood curiosity for gadgets evolved into a professional passion for technology, leading him to the role of Editor-in-Chief at PCWorld Bulgaria before joining PhoneArena. Mariyan's interests range from mainstream Android and iPhone debates to fringe technologies like graphene batteries and nanotechnology. Off-duty, he enjoys playing his electric guitar, practicing Japanese, and revisiting his love for video games and Haruki Murakami's works.
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