3 Nobel prizes in two years for Google, but when will Transformer earn its Nobel?

In the world of innovation, Google isn’t just building products, it’s building history. Over the past two years, the tech giant has quietly achieved something extraordinary: three Nobel Prizes. These aren’t awards for flashy gadgets, but for deep, world-shaping science, the kind that changes how humanity understands itself.

A Golden Era of Recognition

In 2024, Google’s research division earned two Nobel Prizes, one for Demis Hassabis, the visionary behind AlphaFold, which decoded the mysteries of protein folding, and another for Geoffrey Hinton, the “Godfather of AI,” whose neural network breakthroughs paved the path for modern artificial intelligence.

Then came 2025, when Googler Michel Devoret and Google alumnus John Martinis were honoured for their pioneering work in quantum computing, pushing the boundaries of what machines can calculate and comprehend.

Congrats to Michel Devoret, John Martinis, and John Clarke on the Nobel Prize in Physics. 🔬🥼 Michel is chief scientist of hardware at our Quantum AI lab and John Martinis led the hardware team for many years.

Their pioneering work in quantum mechanics in the 1980s made recent…

— Sundar Pichai (@sundarpichai) October 7, 2025

Together, these awards mark an unprecedented streak; no other tech company, not Apple, Microsoft, or Amazon, has matched this intellectual momentum.

Beyond Business: The Spirit of Discovery

While competitors chase market share, Google invests in the unknown, funding research that might take decades to bear fruit. This isn’t just innovation; it’s curiosity at scale.

The five Nobel laureates include current Googlers:
-Demis Hassabis (Chemistry, 2024)
-John Jumper (Chemistry, 2024)
-Michel Devoret (Physics, 2025)

And Google alums:
-Geoff Hinton (Physics, 2024)
-John Martinis (Physics, 2025)

Congratulations!

— Google (@Google) October 7, 2025

The Unanswered Question

As the Nobel committee celebrates AI’s building blocks, one question lingers: when will the Transformer, the architecture that powers modern AI, claim its Nobel moment?

When that day comes, it won’t just be a win for Google; it will be a triumph for an idea that redefined intelligence itself.