DeepMind Wins IMO Gold Medal, Then Top Scientists Are Poached by Meta — All Chinese Experts}
After DeepMind’s IMO gold medal win, Meta swiftly recruited key AI scientists, highlighting intense talent competition among tech giants in the AI race.
This time, Pichai is feeling the heat.
Last week, at IMO 2025, Google DeepMind and OpenAI’s new models won gold medals, but the biggest benefactor turned out to be Meta.
We have just witnessed a new wave of talent reshuffling in the AI field.
Meta Poaches DeepMind IMO Gold Medalists
Early this morning, foreign media reported that three Google AI researchers involved in the IMO gold medal-winning models were recruited by Meta.
Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg continues efforts to revitalize the Llama series by recruiting unprecedented AI talent.
According to insiders, the three researchers recruited by Meta are all Chinese: Tianhe Yu, Cosmo Du, and Weiyue Wang, who previously contributed to the latest version of Google’s Gemini series models.
On Monday, Google announced that the advanced version of Gemini with deep thinking has officially achieved IMO 2025 gold medal standards. Gemini (along with OpenAI’s new models) is among the first AI teams to receive official IMO scoring and certification, matching student solutions and marking a breakthrough in AI technology.
However, just days after celebrating, DeepMind was hit with a blow as Zuckerberg made a strategic move.
All three scientists joining Meta are top-tier AI experts. Tianhe Yu joined DeepMind as a research scientist in 2022, with an undergraduate degree from UC Berkeley and a PhD from Stanford under Chelsea Finn.
Yu (Cosmo) Du was DeepMind’s chief scientist and led the Gemini post-training, thinking, and coding projects. He joined Google in 2017, with a PhD from Zhejiang University.
Weiyue Wang previously worked at Waymo, Google’s autonomous driving division. She earned her PhD from USC in 2015, a master’s from Ohio State University, and her undergraduate degree from Shanghai Jiao Tong University.
Overall, this is just a node in Meta’s recent large-scale talent acquisition. Over the past month, Meta has poached numerous researchers from competitors like OpenAI, Apple, Anthropic, and xAI. Besides these three, Meta has recruited at least six more from Google DeepMind.
Meta has also restructured its AI research team. Zuckerberg appointed former Scale AI CEO Alexandr Wang as Chief AI Officer, and hired ex-GitHub CEO Nat Friedman and former Safe Superintelligence CEO Daniel Gross, who are expected to lead Meta’s new AI division, Meta Superintelligence Labs (MSL), with about 3,400 employees. According to TechXue, Zuckerberg’s high-profile hires have the authority to recruit teams independently.
Meanwhile, Google DeepMind CEO Demis Hassabis manages around 5,600 employees.
Microsoft Poaches Over 20 DeepMind Employees
Meanwhile, the Financial Times and CNBC reported that Microsoft has recruited over 20 employees from Google DeepMind in the past six months, including Amar Subramanya, former VP of engineering for Gemini chatbot.
On Tuesday, Subramanya announced on LinkedIn that he joined Microsoft AI as Vice President of Enterprise, after 16 years at Google, including senior roles at DeepMind.
Another engineer, Chinmay Kulkarni, who focused on developing intelligent agents, also announced joining Microsoft a month ago.
This wave of talent movement coincides with major acquisitions by tech giants. Recently, Google outbid OpenAI by acquiring AI startup Windsurf for $2.4 billion, sparking industry discussions.
New hires from Google will join Microsoft’s AI team led by CEO Mustafa Suleyman, reporting directly to CEO Satya Nadella.
Earlier this month, Google veteran Adam Sadovsky, with nearly 18 years of experience, moved to Microsoft as VP of Enterprise AI, after serving as a distinguished engineer and senior director at DeepMind.
Another AI engineer, Chinmay Kulkarni, also announced his move to Microsoft last month.
This talent migration is happening amid a wave of acquisitions, including Google’s recent $2.4 billion purchase of Windsurf, and reflects the fierce competition for top AI talent.
Microsoft’s new recruits will join Mustafa Suleyman’s team, who reports directly to CEO Nadella. Suleyman, a co-founder of DeepMind, left Google in 2022 to lead AI startup Inflection, and joined Microsoft last year, taking several employees with him.
Earlier this month, Microsoft announced layoffs of about 9,000 employees, less than 4% of its global workforce.
Meta’s $1 Billion Bid for Mark Chen Fails
Additionally, The Wall Street Journal reported that Meta attempted to poach talent from OpenAI earlier this spring.
The report states Zuckerberg approached OpenAI’s Chief Research Officer Mark Chen for advice on improving the company’s generative AI division. Insiders say Meta’s heavy investments in AI hardware and computing power prompted Chen to suggest increasing talent recruitment.
Zuckerberg then asked Chen whether he would consider joining Meta and how much funding would be needed.
"Hundreds of millions? Or a billion dollars?"
Chen declined, saying he was happy at OpenAI. But the conversation sparked Zuckerberg’s idea, leading to Meta’s aggressive talent acquisition spree.
Finally, a simple analysis by netizen @SRKDAN shows the escalating talent war.
This talent war is becoming more intense and exciting...
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