Demis Hasabis: The story of a genius who solves life’s mysteries and won the Nobel prize

As if by a quirk of fate—or perhaps DNA, something he would explore extensively in his adult life—Demis Hassabis did not inherit a talent for music or the arts from his Cypriot father. In what seems to contradict genetic predisposition, he was instead endowed with a rare mathematical mind and an extraordinary ability to understand the sciences.

His father, a Greek Cypriot from Famagusta who emigrated to Britain in the early 1970s seeking a temporary financial solution but became indefinitely trapped in London after the Turkish invasion, was a man of many trades—musician, songwriter, businessman, and owner of a toy store, among other things.

Hassabis’ mother, a Singaporean of Chinese descent, probably never imagined she would give birth to a child with such a superior intellect—a true genius. A man who would become a multi-millionaire by selling the pioneering company he founded, DeepMind, to the tech giant Google for around half a billion dollars in 2014. A man with such innovative and revolutionary thinking that he would win a Nobel Prize at the age of 48, having created a machine that solved a Biology problem that had stumped scientists for at least five decades.

Second Nobel for Cyprus

Demis Hassabis’ parents had very different, simpler dreams for their future. They had hoped to earn enough money in Britain to return to Famagusta as soon as possible, build a large house near the sea, and live out the rest of their lives in peace, watching their family grow with children and grandchildren. None of this came to pass, of course, but the unexpected compensation for the cancellation of their original vision was the extraordinary success of their children, especially Demis.

Demis Hassabis followed his own path into computer science and its most advanced applications, such as Artificial Intelligence. Meanwhile, the family’s musical talent passed to his sister, Eleni Hassabis, who became a pianist and composer with an international career, contributing original music to productions like Peaky Blinders. As for the family’s writing talent, it was inherited by the third child, Demis’ lesser-known brother.

Demis Hassabis—properly Sir Demis Hassabis—is now the recipient of the 2024 Nobel Prize in Chemistry. Although born and raised in Britain and rightly considered a true native of the UK, Cyprus celebrates this as the second Nobel Prize in its history. In 2010, Sir Christopher Pissarides was awarded the prestigious prize for his contribution to Economic Sciences.

Demis Hassabis never learned Greek, and the few words he recognizes come from occasional interactions with his Cypriot grandmother during her stays in London, where she spoke exclusively in Greek with her son, Demis’ father.

Despite this, Demis Hassabis has expressed pride in his Greek Cypriot heritage, saying, “I am pleased that Cypriots are proud of me. I believe that the way I think is Greek, and everything Greece has offered the Western world since the classical period is a significant part of my character. These things inspire me.” His wife is Italian, and one of their two sons is named Alexander-Odysseus, as Odysseus is his favorite hero from Greek mythology—”after all, he was the smartest.” Hassabis also admires Achilles and draws immense inspiration from these figures.

Among his childhood memories, he fondly recalls moments in Greece and family vacations on the islands, in Crete, etc., emphasizing that “we always maintain close ties with our Greek side.”

The AlphaFold2 Miracle

The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences recognized Hassabis’ significant contribution to a groundbreaking innovation that opens up previously unimaginable possibilities for understanding human biology. By focusing on unraveling the structure and makeup of proteins, this discovery brings humanity closer to understanding the very secret of life—akin to the philosopher’s stone sought by alchemists.

The 2024 Nobel Prize in Chemistry was awarded jointly to Demis Hassabis and two other scientists, Americans David Baker and John Jumper. The prize includes 11 million Swedish kronor (about €970,000), with half awarded to David Baker for designing new types of proteins, molecules that do not exist in nature.

The remaining half is shared between Hassabis and his young DeepMind collaborator, John Jumper. According to the Swedish Academy’s assessment of the trio’s accomplishments, “This year’s Nobel Prize in Chemistry focuses on proteins, these ingenious chemical tools of life. David Baker achieved the nearly impossible feat of designing completely new types of proteins.

Demis Hassabis and John Jumper developed an Artificial Intelligence model that solved a problem that has stumped science for the past 50 years: predicting the complex internal structure of proteins. These discoveries hold vast potential for advancing scientific knowledge.”

At the graduation ceremony from Cambridge, where he completed his studies in computer science

The Discovery

It is explained that the diversity of life is due to proteins and the immense potential encoded within their microscopic molecules. In simple terms, proteins form the foundation of life, serving as the biological building blocks of every living organism. Proteins also function as hormones, transmitters, antibodies fighting external harmful viruses, and can even transform into tissues, among other roles.

The Nobel Prize committee further clarifies, simplifying highly complex concepts, that proteins are made up of 20 different amino acids. Baker managed to use some of these amino acids in original combinations, producing new types of proteins. Together with his team, Baker experimented with proteins that could be used as medicines and vaccines, as well as in entirely different fields like the production of advanced nanomaterials, ultra-small sensors, and more.

Focusing on Demis Hassabis’ contribution, the Swedish Academy notes that amino acids link together to form long chains, which fold and develop into a three-dimensional structure. This is how proteins are created and how they function. The unsolved puzzle for biologists for more than half a century was how to predict this three-dimensional structure before it forms, so they could identify the type and “mission” of each protein in advance.

The Gordian knot was untied by an idea from Demis Hassabis: In 2020, Hassabis and John Jumper created an Artificial Intelligence model named AlphaFold2. In simple terms, they built an intelligent machine—an extremely powerful computer—that analyzed and revealed the internal molecular structure of 200 million different proteins, as many as are known to biologists today. Through DeepMind—and its parent company, Google—over 2 million scientists from 190 different countries worldwide are now able to use the AlphaFold2 AI machine.

This means that, in every respect, Demis Hassabis and John Jumper have opened up vast new horizons for the scientific community, providing a powerful tool for the study of proteins. The findings from their research automatically translate into better and more effective medicines for humanity, while AlphaFold2 can even be used to create enzymes that break down (“eat”) plastic waste, helping to reduce environmental pollution.

The final conclusion, with which the 2024 Nobel Prize in Chemistry announcement ends, sums up everything one needs to know about Demis Hassabis’ innovation: “There can be no life without proteins. The fact that we can now predict protein structures and design our own is a tremendous benefit to humankind.”

Dizzying Journey

To understand who Demis Hassabis is and how he achieved the status of a global authority at the highest levels of Artificial Intelligence, one could look back at certain defining episodes from his journey so far. A constant starting point throughout much of it was his love for video games, coupled, of course, with his exceptional intellectual capabilities.

When Demis was just four years old, he watched his father and uncle play chess. He had no idea what this game with the little squares and strange figures was, but he wanted more than anything for them to teach him how to play. Within a few months, not only was he playing, but he was also defeating the adults.

By the time he was 12, he had become one of the best chess players in the world—at least in his age group. At 13, he was a professional player, but he had already decided he didn’t want to limit himself to just that, no matter how good he was or how spectacular the prize money was at the tournaments he competed in. His interest had long shifted—since the age of 8—to computers. Starting with the gaming consoles of the early 1980s, Demis quickly moved from simply using them to programming. Soon enough, he had learned so much about computers that he was able to create his own video games.

The “Theme Park” game he developed immediately became a global commercial success, selling millions of copies and proving to be a goldmine for the company that produced it, Bullfrog Productions. Hassabis, the creator of “Theme Park,” whom the entire gaming industry was talking about, was just a 17-year-old, small-framed, bespectacled Londoner with somewhat Asian facial features. At the same time, he had finished his secondary education as a top student, two years ahead of the expected and mandatory high school duration.

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