The AlphaFold co-creator is departing Google DeepMind after nearly nine years to join Anthropic, in a notable talent shift across the AI industry.
John Jumper, who shared the 2024 Nobel Prize in Chemistry for his work on AlphaFold, announced on Friday that he is leaving Google DeepMind to join Anthropic. [1]
Jumper said he spent “nearly 9 years” at DeepMind before making the move. [1] AlphaFold is an artificial intelligence model capable of predicting the three-dimensional structure of proteins from their genetic sequences — work that earned Jumper and DeepMind chief executive Demis Hassabis the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 2024. [1]
In a post on X, Jumper credited Hassabis directly for his career trajectory, writing that Hassabis “took a real chance letting me lead the AlphaFold team just six months after finishing my PhD.” [1] He added that DeepMind “is a special place,” suggesting the departure is amicable. [1]
Beyond his protein-structure research, Bloomberg reported that Jumper had been a key member of Google’s team working on coding tools, a product area the company has struggled to sell to businesses. [1]
Jumper’s departure is not the only high-profile exit from DeepMind this week. Character AI co-founder Noam Shazeer also announced he is leaving the company, though Shazeer is heading to OpenAI rather than Anthropic. [1]
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