Nobel-Winning AlphaFold Scientist John Jumper Leaves Google DeepMind for Anthropic

John Jumper, the Nobel Prize-winning scientist behind AlphaFold, has announced that he is leaving Google DeepMind after nearly nine years to join AI startup Anthropic.

In a post on X, Jumper wrote, “After nearly 9 years, I have decided to leave Google DeepMind and join Anthropic (after taking some time to recharge).” 

He added that he was ‘incredibly grateful’ for his time at the company and credited Google DeepMind CEO Demis Hassabis for giving him the opportunity to lead the AlphaFold team shortly after completing his PhD.

“Demis Hassabis 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.

Jumper’s departure comes amid an intensifying competition among leading AI companies, including Anthropic, OpenAI, Google DeepMind and Meta to recruit top research talent. His move follows the recent exit of Gemini co-lead Noam Shazeer from Google to OpenAI.

Best known as the co-creator of AlphaFold, Jumper helped build the AI system that transformed structural biology by accurately predicting protein structures from amino acid sequences. AlphaFold has predicted more than 200 million protein structures, creating a publicly accessible database that researchers use to accelerate biological research and drug discovery.

For his work on AlphaFold, Jumper shared the 2024 Nobel Prize in Chemistry with Hassabis and scientist David Baker.

Responding to Jumper’s announcement, Hassabis praised his longtime colleague’s contributions. “What we achieved with AlphaFold changed the world, and showed the field what was possible with AI for science and medicine,” he wrote on X.

Neither Jumper nor Anthropic disclosed the role he will assume at Anthropic. The hire is expected to strengthen the company’s scientific research ambitions. Anthropic is scheduled to host a science-focused event later this month.

In his farewell message, Jumper described Google DeepMind as ‘a special place’ and said he would continue to follow the lab’s future discoveries with enthusiasm.