Hello everyone,

Today we are announcing the acquisition of London-based company Matrix Mill and its incredibly talented team, led by computer vision and machine learning experts Gabriel Brostow, Michael Firman, and Daniyar Turmukhambetov. Welcome to Niantic!

The Matrix Mill team comes from University College London, where they spent years building and perfecting deep neural networks that can infer information about the surrounding world from one or more cameras. This technology redefines how machines see and understand the 3D world, and more importantly, how digital objects can interact with the real elements of it.

At Niantic, we frequently talk about how in order to augment reality, you need to be able to understand it. The Matrix Mill team has come up with novel ideas that push the boundaries of what machines can process, thinking around occlusions, and seeing the world closer to the way human eyes can. As a result of this hard work, AR experiences can feel more natural to the eye, which is a goal we have squarely in our sights.

We’re excited about Matrix Mill joining Niantic, as it significantly advances our computer vision and machine learning efforts. We are committed to investing aggressively in R&D that can enhance the experiences of our users, both today and in the decades to come. The addition of the Matrix Mill team also allows us to continue to deliver on planet-scale AR, and helps us advance the Niantic Real World Platform.

If computer vision, machine learning, and the development of neural networks are up your alley, and you want to apply that passion to applications that entertain hundreds of millions of people around the world, we’d love to hear from you.

—jh