Opaque Co-Founder Raluca Ada Popa Joins Google DeepMind to Lead AI Security Research

We are thrilled to celebrate a milestone for Raluca Ada Popa, whose groundbreaking work has profoundly shaped Opaque’s mission of securely accelerating AI into production, and the broader field of confidential computing.

Raluca is joining Google DeepMind as a senior staff research scientist, where she will lead cutting-edge research on the security and privacy of generative AI—a critical area as we navigate the challenges and opportunities of frontier AI systems.

Raluca's focus at DeepMind will address some of the most pressing questions in AI safety:

How can we defend against cyberattack capabilities in advanced models?
What strategies can mitigate risks when models exhibit self-proliferation, self-reasoning, or self-improvement in ways misaligned with human intentions?

This new chapter strongly aligns with Raluca’s ongoing commitment to advancing security in AI—as a co-director of Skylab at UC Berkeley, she has been leading research on end-to-end generative AI pipelines that integrate systems, AI, and security. Now, at DeepMind, her vision and leadership will continue to drive forward the understanding and safeguarding of next-generation AI systems.

While Raluca embarks on this exciting journey, she remains actively involved in guiding Opaque’s innovative solutions as a co-founder and member of our Board of Directors.

We’re deeply proud of Raluca’s ongoing contributions to the field. Congratulations, Raluca!