X

Founded in 2010 and based in Mountain View, California, X is Alphabet's Moonshot Factory: a research and development organisation that invents and launches breakthrough technologies aimed at solving seemingly impossible problems. Its stated purpose is to transform science fiction into reality, pursuing projects that target large, difficult questions using emerging technologies and unconventional approaches.

The organisation operates as a semi-secret research facility, working across autonomous vehicles, life sciences, drone delivery, high-altitude balloon internet, AI-powered biology, grid intelligence, sustainable agriculture and artificial intelligence. Teams are multidisciplinary, drawn from inventors, scientists, engineers and entrepreneurs, and span industries from mobility and healthcare to telecommunications, energy and agriculture.

X's record is measured in what it has produced. Waymo (autonomous vehicles), Verily (life sciences) and Wing (drone delivery) began as X projects and were spun off as independent companies. Project Loon, which broadcast internet access from balloons, was another of its endeavours. Current initiatives include A-Life, an AI-powered biology effort; Tapestry, focused on grid intelligence; and mineral, addressing sustainable agriculture.

The name captures the philosophy. X stands for the unknown variable awaiting a solution, and as a multiplication symbol for the exponential impact such solutions can have - a laboratory whose ambition is to make the world a radically better place.