Next time you ask Google for directions or run an image search, thank Le Viet Quoc.

The 34-year-old Vietnamese engineer is part of the team behind Google Brain, an artificial intelligence (AI) research project whose technology is responsible for such features, reports VnExpress.

Part of Google's not-so-secret research outfit X, which pioneers cutting-edge technology like self-driving cars and delivery drones, Quoc works in a field known as “deep learning” which uses the human brain as a model to create “neural networks” for computers. Though deep learning's development has been slow, engineers like Quoc are making progress: in 2012, Google Brain made headlines when its network of 16,000 computer processors successfully learned how to search for cat videos on YouTube, despite being given no information prior to the test on how to identify such animals.

The Stanford grad, who holds a doctorate in computer science and was named one of MIT's Innovators Under 35, is still working toward the creation of better, more intelligent machines. Along with the rest of the Google Brain team, Quoc aspires to develop a form of AI which requires only minimal human guidance. If successful, he believes this technology could help to address some of the world's larger issues, such as climate change, healthcare and education.

“I look forward to creating a machine that can see, hear and understand us,” VnExpress quoted Quoc as saying.

Now a major player at the forefront of one of the world's most innovative technologies, Quoc's success is made all the more impressive by his upbringing: the computer engineer spent his first nine years in a small, rural village without electricity.

[Photo via Tech Times]