Anthropic adds Nobel Laureate John Jumper from Google DeepMind
Synopsis
John Jumper, the Nobel Prize-winning scientist behind AlphaFold, is leaving Google DeepMind after nearly a decade to join Anthropic. The move comes as AI companies continue investing heavily in research talent and infrastructure, with global AI funding and recruitment remaining strong across major markets including the United States and Europe.
Nobel-winning AlphaFold lead John Jumper is leaving Google DeepMind to move to AI rival startup Anthropic, after almost nine years at the company.
The Google fellow and vice president announced the departure in a social media post on Thursday morning, saying he will take a few weeks before taking on the new role.
Anthropic, which is one of DeepMind’s main competitors, hasn’t provided any details about his role there.
Jumper’s departure comes at a time when tech’s AI boom is causing major Silicon Valley companies to battle it out for experienced AI researchers. As the amount of private investment pouring into AI technologies booms in the US, Europe, and Asia, firms are snapping up top talent.
AlphaFold still key John Jumper, known for his work on AlphaFold, an AI programme to predict the 3-D structures of proteins, has been the key scientist working on the groundbreaking system, now used by hundreds of thousands of people globally to find therapies and study diseases.
His team compiled a database of protein structures predicted using artificial intelligence, the equivalent of around one-tenth of all predicted proteins, which became one of the biggest resources ever to come out of an AI group.
In January of this year, Jumper and Google DeepMind chief executive Demis Hassabis were jointly awarded the Nobel Prize in Chemistry for their work on protein structure prediction using artificial intelligence.
AI Talent War Heats Up Jumper’s is the latest in a series of high-profile researchers to switch jobs across the AI sector amid mounting global competition and rising levels of research and computing power across countries like the US, China, and the EU, and an expansion in funding by Alphabet, Meta, Microsoft, and Nvidia among many others.
According to the 2025 AI Index report, the U.S leads the world in research on highly notable AI model development, while China gains on the U.S. It found that private AI funding worldwide rose 60% to $155.6B in 2024, its first increase in five years.
One of the companies to watch in the rapidly growing space is Anthropic, in April, an internal financing round to raise funds at a company valuation of approximately US$61.5 billion. After the announcement Hassabis took to social media on Thursday to thank Jumper.
“Thank you John Jumper for almost nine years at DeepMind and particularly for leading AlphaFold and the biological research programmes that kickstarted DeepMind’s leadership in AI for biology!” Hassabis said in a post shared widely with his 77,000 followers on X, previously known as Twitter.
Source: Reuters
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Pooja Malik is a business journalist with over six years of experience covering startups, entrepreneurship, and emerging trends. She has previously worked with leading media platforms such as YourStory Media and BW BusinessWorld, where she reported on business, policy, and market developments. Currently, she serves as Editor at The Inspirepreneur Magazine, where she writes and edits stories across business, lifestyle, and travel, with a focus on clarity, accuracy, and reader relevance.
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