Nobel Laureate John Jumper Leaves Google DeepMind for Anthropic

John Jumper, the 2024 Nobel Chemistry laureate who co‑led the development of the AlphaFold system that predicts protein structures, announced on X that he is leaving Google DeepMind after nearly nine years to join AI startup Anthropic. In his post he wrote, “After nearly nine years, I have decided to leave Google DeepMind and join Anthropic.” DeepMind thanked him for his contributions, and chief executive Demis Hassabis responded, “Thanks John for an extraordinary partnership and wonderful collaboration over the past 9 years! What we achieved with AlphaFold changed the world.” Jumper’s new role at Anthropic has not been disclosed. The move follows the recent departure of Google engineer Noam Shazeer to OpenAI, highlighting intense competition among leading AI firms for top scientific talent.