Inside the AI lab that made history

A quietly extraordinary documentary filmed behind the closed doors of Google DeepMind has exploded into one of YouTube's most-watched non-fiction releases, drawing hundreds of millions of viewers into the rarefied, high-stakes world of artificial intelligence and the scientists attempting to decode the very nature of thought.

As reported by Ben Cohen in The Wall Street Journal, the film — titled 'The Thinking Game' — offers unprecedented access to one of the world's most influential AI laboratories and to its co-founder and chief executive, Demis Hassabis, whose work helped deliver a Nobel Prize in chemistry and reshape modern biological research.

The documentary, directed by American filmmaker Greg Kohs, has surged towards 300 million views since landing on YouTube late last year, an astonishing figure for a film centred on protein structures, neural networks and long-term scientific ambition rather than spectacle or celebrity.

Its popularity is all the more striking given the deeply technical subject matter. Yet the film's emotional pull — Kohs' trademark pursuit of cinematic "goosebumps" — appears to have transformed complex research into gripping human drama.

The story traces back nearly a decade, when Hassabis approached Kohs with a provocative challenge: how would one document a scientific turning point comparable to the Manhattan Project? At the time, artificial intelligence was still largely confined to research circles, far from the commercial frenzy it commands today.

Hassabis granted Kohs extraordinary access to DeepMind's inner workings, trusting the director's instinct for capturing human emotion rather than corporate messaging. Kohs' background was unconventional for a technology chronicler; he spent 10 formative years at NFL Films, where he learned to build cinematic narratives from tension, struggle and triumph.

Working as the so-called "weasel cam" operator, Kohs scurried around stadiums searching for emotional moments away from the field — a training ground that later proved invaluable inside the far less visible theatre of scientific discovery.

His relationship with Google began through commercial work, but it soon evolved into something historic. DeepMind initially invited him to document the development of AlphaGo, the AI system that stunned the world by defeating Go champion Lee Sedol. What began as archival recording became the acclaimed 2017 documentary 'AlphaGo'.

That film cemented trust between Kohs and the lab, leading to a level of clearance rarely afforded to outsiders. He was given unrestricted access to DeepMind's London headquarters, including secure areas hidden even from some staff.

From 2018 to 2024, Kohs and producer Gary Krieg embedded themselves among researchers tackling one of biology's grand challenges: protein folding. The problem — predicting a protein's three-dimensional shape from its amino acid sequence — had stumped scientists for decades.

DeepMind's solution, AlphaFold, revolutionised the field. By dramatically improving prediction accuracy, the system unlocked structural data for nearly all known proteins, accelerating drug discovery and fundamental biological research. The breakthrough ultimately earned Hassabis and his collaborators a Nobel Prize in chemistry.

Kohs captured the moment of realisation that propelled the project from impressive to historic. In a now widely replayed scene, Hassabis casually suggests running AlphaFold across every protein sequence in existence and releasing the results openly. The decision would democratise access to biological knowledge worldwide.

The film's emotional spine is strengthened by archival footage from a 1986 BBC interview in which a nine-year-old Hassabis, then a chess prodigy, describes chess simply as "a good thinking game" — a phrase that would later inspire the documentary's title.

Much of Kohs' filming took place during Hassabis' commutes and late-night hours at home, often between 10pm and 4am, alone with a camera and caffeine. The intimacy reveals a driven, restless mind balancing visionary ambition with relentless routine.

Despite Google funding the production and retaining copyright, the documentary resists the hollow sheen of corporate promotion. While undeniably flattering, it offers rare insight into the personalities, doubts and obsessions behind technologies now reshaping economies and societies.

Critics who label it advertising miss the point. The film does what effective journalism and documentary should: humanise complexity and illuminate processes typically hidden from public view.

Its timing also aligns with Google's resurgence in the AI race. Alphabet's market value has soared over the past year, recently crossing the $4 trillion threshold, fuelled in part by advances showcased in the film.

For viewers, the appeal lies not only in technological marvels but in witnessing history unfold in real time — the quiet meetings, uncertain experiments and flashes of intuition that precede global transformation.

In the end, Kohs achieved exactly what he set out to create: a scientific documentary that doesn't merely inform but unsettles, inspires and leaves audiences with the unmistakable chill of watching the future being written.