Just when they believed they were passed over for this year's Nobel Prize in chemistry, two scientists from Google's DeepMind AI research team got the call -- mere minutes before they were announced as honorees.

The award this week of Nobel prizes in chemistry and physics to a small number of artificial intelligence pioneers affiliated with Google has stirred debate over the company's research dominance and how breakthroughs in computer science ought to be recognised.

The Nobel Prize in chemistry was awarded to three scientists today — two of whom are significant figures at Google DeepMind — for their work around proteins, which the Nobel Prize committee describes as the “chemical tools of life.”