A tech company losing money is nothing new.
The tech industry is replete with examples of companies who burned investor money long before becoming profitable.
But DeepMind is not a normal company seeking to grab a share of a specific market.
The overall losses of the company grew from 470 million in 2018 to 477 million in 2019.
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DeepMinds revenue and losses from 2016 to 2019
But the report contains a few more significant facts.
The document mentions Turnover research and development remuneration from other group undertakings.
This means DeepMinds main customer is its owner.
Alphabet is paying DeepMind to apply its AI research and talent to Googles services and infrastructure.
This is an important point.
DeepMinds main area of research isdeep reinforcement learning, which requires access to very expensive compute resources.
This means that without the support and backing of Google, the companys expenses would have been much higher.
Staff costs is another important issue.
And by some accounts, top AI talent commandseven-digit salaries.
The fierce competition for snatching top AI talent has had two consequences.
And for me, its important that we are state-of-the-art as a company, and we are leading.
But the corporate world and scientific research move at different paces.
Scientific research is measured in decades.
On the other hand, the patience of shareholders and investors is measured in months and years.
DeepMind currently has none of those.
It doesnt have measurable growth, because its only client is Google itself.
And its not clear whenif ever some of its technology will be ready for commercialization.
Its owners goal, however, is to build products that solve specific problems and turn in profits.
The companyhas already had troublefinding balance scientific research and product development in the past.
And DeepMind is not alone.
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