Nobel laureate John Jumper leaves Google DeepMind for rival Anthropic
Google's AI unit just lost its Nobel laureate. John Jumper, the DeepMind VP who shared the 2024 Chemistry Nobel for AlphaFold, is leaving for rival Anthropic after nearly nine years. His exit follows Gemini co-lead Noam Shazeer's move to OpenAI days earlier. Per TechCrunch.
Google's artificial intelligence operation has lost one of its most decorated researchers at a sensitive moment. John Jumper, a vice president at Google $GOOGL DeepMind who shared the 2024 Nobel Prize in Chemistry for the protein-structure model AlphaFold, said he is leaving after nearly nine years to join rival Anthropic. He plans to stay through the end of the year to help with the transition. The departure lands days after Noam Shazeer, a co-lead on Google's Gemini models, left for OpenAI, putting two senior exits from Google's AI ranks in the same week. Jumper shared his Nobel with DeepMind chief executive Demis Hassabis, which makes the move to a direct competitor notable inside the field. Anthropic and OpenAI have been pulling talent toward their work on AI coding tools, an area where Google has been trying to keep pace. According to reporting by TechCrunch and CNBC, Jumper announced the decision on X. The shift adds to a broader contest among the largest AI labs to hold on to the researchers who built their reputations.