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Nobel Prize-winning scientist John Jumper is leaving Google DeepMind after nearly nine years to join AI startup Anthropic. Jumper announced the move on Friday through a post on X, marking another senior departure from Google’s AI research division.
Jumper is best known for helping create AlphaFold, an AI system that predicts the three-dimensional structures of proteins. The technology has produced predictions for more than 200 million protein structures. Researchers have used its data in biological and medical studies that previously required lengthy laboratory work.
“After nearly nine years, I have decided to leave Google DeepMind and join Anthropic,” Jumper wrote. He did not provide details about his position at Anthropic or explain which projects he would work on after joining the company.
Jumper also thanked Google DeepMind Chief Executive Demis Hassabis for allowing him to lead the AlphaFold team shortly after completing his doctorate. “Demis Hassabis took a real chance letting me lead the AlphaFold team just six months after finishing my PhD,” he said.
Google DeepMind confirmed the departure and thanked Jumper for his work in science and artificial intelligence. “We are grateful for John’s contributions to Google DeepMind’s work in advancing science and AI. We wish him well in his next chapter,” a spokesperson said.
Meanwhile, Hassabis described their work on AlphaFold as an important achievement for AI-based scientific research. “What we achieved with AlphaFold changed the world and showed the field what was possible with AI for science and medicine,” he wrote in response to Jumper’s announcement.
Jumper and Hassabis received the 2024 Nobel Prize in Chemistry for their work on protein structure prediction. Their AlphaFold model showed that artificial intelligence could predict how proteins fold into complex shapes.
Protein structures help scientists understand how cells operate and how diseases develop. Accurate predictions can support research into medicines, vaccines and biological processes. AlphaFold made a large database of predicted structures available to researchers across several fields.
Jumper joined Google DeepMind after earning a doctorate in theoretical chemistry from the University of Chicago. He had earlier studied at the University of Cambridge as a Marshall Scholar. At DeepMind, he later served as a vice president and engineering fellow.
Although his work focused strongly on AI for science, Anthropic has not stated whether Jumper will join a scientific research team. The company confirmed that he would become part of its staff but did not disclose his title or starting date.
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Jumper’s move comes as major technology companies and AI startups compete to recruit experienced researchers. Anthropic, OpenAI, Google, Meta and other developers are investing in teams that can build more capable AI models and specialized tools.
His departure follows Google engineering executive Noam Shazeer’s decision to leave the company for OpenAI. Shazeer had worked as a co-leader of Google’s Gemini AI models and helped write a research paper that shaped the development of modern generative AI systems.
Analyst Gil Luria said competition for a limited number of skilled researchers has given specialist AI companies a recruitment advantage. “Frontier AI research labs are willing to do whatever it takes to add them,” Luria said. He added that smaller AI developers can offer researchers focused roles and fewer internal processes.
Jumper described Google DeepMind as a “special place” and said he would follow its future scientific discoveries. Anthropic is scheduled to hold a science event on June 30, although the company has not linked the event to Jumper’s appointment.
