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Llion Jones

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Llion Jones
Born
EducationUniversity of Birmingham (BSc, MSc)
OccupationMachine learning researcher
EmployerSakana AI

Llion Jones is a Welsh machine learning researcher, co-founder and CTO of Sakana AI.

Biography

[edit]

Jones was born 1984 in Bangor, raised in Bangor and Abergynolwyn in Gwynedd, Wales.[1][2] He attended Coleg Meirion-Dwyfor,[1] then received a bachelors in artificial intelligence and computer science and masters in advanced computer science from the University of Birmingham.[3][4] Jones graduated in 2009,[1] joining Google's YouTube as a software engineer in 2011 or 2012, then moving to research in machine intelligence and natural language processing at Google Research in 2015.[4][5] Jones was a coauthor of the paper "Attention is All You Need", a 2017 paper which introduced the transformer.[6]

In 2023, Llion left Google Japan to found the startup Sakana AI along with former Google employee and Stability AI officer David Ha, becoming its chief technology officer,[7][8] also joined by Ren Ito.[9]

Jones has criticized the narrow scope of AI research,[10][11] such as Google's limited focus on large language models.[4]

References

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  1. 1 2 3 Evans, Arron (2018-11-16). "Bangor-born Llion opens up about journey to America as Google employee". North Wales Chronicle. Retrieved 2026-05-26.
  2. Thomas, Huw (2025-11-24). "AI pioneer Llion Jones calls for UK to 'be brave' in tech race". BBC. Retrieved 2026-05-26.
  3. "Llion Jones, Alumni". University of Birmingham. Retrieved 2026-05-26.
  4. 1 2 3 Novet, Jordan (2023-08-17). "Google A.I. researcher says he left to build a startup after encountering 'big company-itis'". CNBC. Retrieved 2026-05-26.
  5. "Llion Jones". DLD News. Retrieved 2026-05-26.
  6. Tong, Anna (2023-08-17). "Top ex-Google Brain researchers start AI research company in Tokyo". Reuters. Archived from the original on 2023-08-21. Retrieved 2026-05-26.
  7. Love, Julia (2023-07-10). "AI Researcher Who Helped Write Landmark Paper Is Leaving Google". Bloomberg. Archived from the original on 2025-09-01. Retrieved 2026-05-26.
  8. Forster, Katie (2025-09-10). "Top Japan startup Sakana AI touts nature-inspired tech". The Japan Times. Retrieved 2026-05-26.
  9. Ryuichi, Maruyama (2025-03-07). "[Special Feature: The Future of AI in Japan]: Can Tokyo be a global hub for AI development? Interview with Ren Ito, co-founder of fast-rising Sakana AI". ScienceJapan. Retrieved 2026-05-26.
  10. "Sakana AI's CTO says he's 'absolutely sick' of transformers, the tech that powers every major AI model". Venturebeat. 2025-10-23. Archived from the original on 2026-05-25. Retrieved 2026-05-26.
  11. Jones, Llion (2026-01-28). How competition is stifling AI breakthroughs. Retrieved 2026-05-26 via www.ted.com.