DeepMind, Google's artificial intelligence startup, has turned a profit for the first time since its inception in 2010, according to an Oct. 5 CNBC report.
Six details:
- DeepMind recorded a $59.6 million profit in 2020 after losing hundreds of millions for the last several years. In 2019, DeepMind reported losing $449 million.
- The AI company doesn't sell products to consumers, instead it sells its software to Alphabet's companies, such as Google and YouTube, CNBC reported. It also hasn't announced any deals outside of Alphabet.
- A spokesperson for DeepMind told CNBC that the company is "powering products and infrastructure that enrich the lives of billions through the many collaborations we have worked across Alphabet over the years."
- A source with knowledge of DeepMind, who wished to remain anonymous, told CNBC, "I don't think DeepMind has many or any revenue streams. So all that income is based on how much Alphabet pays for internal services, and that can be entirely arbitrary."
- Google acquired DeepMind in 2014. The United Kingdom's National Health Service signed a deal in 2015 that gave DeepMind access to pseudonymized patient records to develop patient-monitoring app Streams
- Google and DeepMind are being sued over the lab's handling of the health data of over a million patients in the development of Streams. An NHS patient in the U.K. sued the companies on behalf of roughly 1.6 million patients whose medical records were allegedly obtained by DeepMind without their consent, according to the report.