Nikkei Profiles Google DeepMind Tokyo Head Heiga Zen as Sakana AI Founder Recalls Their Google Brain Days
hardmaru · x · 2026-09-20
Nikkei's profile series on Heiga Zen, head of Google DeepMind Tokyo, covers his path from speech-synthesis research (WaveNet) to leading Google's AI efforts in Japan, including how David Ha left to found Sakana AI amid the generative-AI wave.
Sakana AI founder David Ha shared the piece with a personal note: in 2018 the two of them started the Google Brain Tokyo team together, grinding through late-night calls across brutal time zones to prove Japan's AI research mattered. Now Zen leads GDM Tokyo and Ha runs Sakana AI — and he's delighted to see Tokyo's AI ecosystem grow this large.
A nice snapshot of how Japan's AI scene matured from a two-person outpost into a real hub.
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