Nobel laureate John Jumper is leaving Google DeepMind for Anthropic after nearly nine years at the tech giant. The AlphaFold architect announced his departure on Friday, marking a significant shift in the competition for AI talent.
In his departure statement, Jumper thanked DeepMind CEO Demis Hassabis. "Demis took a real chance letting me lead the AlphaFold team just six months after finishing my PhD, and the entire GDM team taught me so much about how to do great science," he wrote.
According to Bloomberg, Jumper was a key player on Google's coding tools team, a project the company has been promoting to businesses. His departure raises questions about the status of that initiative, though it may also reflect Jumper's confidence in Anthropic's direction for AI development.
The timing compounds recent departures from DeepMind. Character AI co-founder Noam Shazeer also announced his exit this week, moving to OpenAI instead. Two senior researchers leaving in one week signals shifting dynamics within the organization.
Jumper and Hassabis won the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 2024 for their work on AlphaFold, the AI model that transformed protein structure prediction. Their separation underscores the intensifying competition for talent among leading AI labs.
