What drives someone to spend decades pursuing artificial general intelligence, not for wealth, but for scientific discovery?

In this episode of Technovation, Peter High speaks with bestselling author and financial historian Sebastian Mallaby about his new book, The Infinity Machine, which chronicles the remarkable journey of DeepMind co-founder Demis Hassabis and the global race to build artificial general intelligence (AGI).

Drawing on more than 30 hours of interviews with Hassabis and conversations with over 100 colleagues, competitors, and friends, Mallaby explores the leadership philosophy, scientific ambition, and organizational decisions that shaped one of the world’s most influential AI companies.

Listeners will also hear an in-depth discussion of Google’s acquisition of DeepMind, the evolution of AI from AlphaGo to Gemini, the competitive dynamics among OpenAI, Anthropic, Microsoft, and Google, and what the pursuit of superintelligence means for business leaders navigating the next era of technological transformation.

Key topics include:

• Why Demis Hassabis devoted his career to AGI
• The founding story behind DeepMind
• Google’s AI strategy and the Innovator’s Dilemma
• Leadership lessons from building world-class research organizations
• The opportunities of increasingly capable AI systems

Listen to discover why the future of AI may depend as much on leadership and organizational design as on technological breakthroughs.

This episode is presented by ElevenLabs — Bringing technology to life. Learn more at elevenlabs.io