Shakir Mohamed, a South African native and senior research director at Google DeepMind, is one of the most influential minds in artificial intelligence. With a PhD from the University of Cambridge and over 37,000 citations on Google Scholar, Mohamed’s work spans machine learning, Bayesian statistics, and sociotechnical AI.
His journey began at the University of the Witwatersrand, where he earned multiple academic honors, including the Chancellor’s Medal and the SAIMM Gold Medal. After a year as a credit risk analyst at Nedbank, Mohamed moved to the UK for his PhD in statistical machine learning, followed by a research fellowship in Canada.
He joined DeepMind in 2013 when it was still a small startup. A year later, Google acquired the company for $600 million. Mohamed has since led research on general-purpose AI, with a growing focus on how AI interacts with social systems, especially in underrepresented regions like Africa.
In 2017, he co-founded the Deep Learning Indaba, an annual event aimed at building a strong African AI community. The idea stemmed from noticing a lack of African presence at global AI conferences. The first Indaba was hosted at Wits, his alma mater.
Mohamed’s work increasingly centers on AI for social impact. One key focus is improving weather prediction in Africa, where current models lag behind those in developed countries by about 25% in accuracy — a gap that affects flood forecasting and disaster preparedness.
In 2023, he was named to Time Magazine’s list of the 100 most influential people in AI, recognized in the “Thinkers” category alongside five other DeepMind colleagues.
“My mission is to work on machine learning that has a social purpose,” Mohamed said. He warns that without diverse global input, AI risks causing harm due to cultural blind spots. He cites the 1998 El Niño forecasts in Peru, which were poorly communicated to the fishing industry, as a cautionary tale.
Mohamed’s message is clear: representation in AI matters – and Africa must help shape the future of the technology.
