July 11 (Reuters) - Google has hired Windsurf

CEO Varun Mohan, co-founder Douglas Chen, and select members of

the coding tool's research and development team to join its

DeepMind division, a Google spokesperson said on Friday, in a

move to strengthen itself in the race for AI leadership.

Mohan and the Windsurf team will focus on agentic coding

initiatives at Google DeepMind, primarily working on the Gemini

project.

The development comes as tech giants including Alphabet and

Meta Platforms ( META ) aggressively chase high-profile

acquisitions and offer multi-million-dollar pay packages to

attract top talent in the race to lead the next wave of AI.

"We're excited to welcome some top AI coding talent from

Windsurf's team to Google DeepMind to advance our work in

agentic coding," a Google spokesperson told Reuters.

Google will not acquire any stake in Windsurf, but will

receive a non-exclusive license to certain Windsurf

technologies.

The Verge reported on Friday Windsurf's head of business,

Jeff Wang, has been appointed its interim CEO, and Graham

Moreno, vice president of global sales, will be president,

effective immediately.

The majority of Windsurf's roughly 250 employees will remain

with the company, which has announced plans to prioritize

innovation for its enterprise clients.

The move effectively ends OpenAI's planned acquisition of

Windsurf. Previously, OpenAI had agreed to acquire the company

for about $3 billion, Bloomberg News reported in May.