Nobel Prize winner John Jumper is departing Google DeepMind to join Anthropic after close to nine years.

      TL;DR: John Jumper, who received the 2024 Nobel Prize in Chemistry for AlphaFold, is departing Google DeepMind after nearly nine years to join Anthropic.

      John Jumper, the vice president of Google DeepMind who was awarded the 2024 Nobel Prize in Chemistry for his work on AlphaFold, is leaving the organization after close to nine years to take a position at Anthropic. He announced this decision on X on Thursday, mentioning he would take some time to recharge before starting with the company known for Claude. Both Google DeepMind and Anthropic have confirmed his departure.

      “Demis Hassabis took a significant risk in allowing me to lead the AlphaFold team just six months after I completed my PhD,” Jumper shared. Hassabis, who co-received the Nobel Prize with Jumper, publicly responded: “Our achievements with AlphaFold transformed the field and demonstrated the potential of AI in science and medicine, illuminating how AI can benefit humanity.”

      This news follows the announcement from Gemini co-lead Noam Shazeer that he is leaving Google for OpenAI, marking a second significant talent loss for Google's AI division within 48 hours. Shazeer, who co-authored the pivotal 2017 paper “Attention Is All You Need,” joined Google for $2.7 billion after leaving Character.AI.

      Jumper, who shared the 2024 Nobel Prize in Chemistry with Hassabis for developing AlphaFold2—an AI system that predicts protein structures from amino acid sequences—also recognized David Baker from the University of Washington for the other half of the prize due to his work in computational protein design. Since its launch, AlphaFold2 has been utilized by over two million scientists across 190 countries, speeding up research on malaria vaccines, cancer treatments, and drug-resistant bacteria.

      Prior to his tenure at DeepMind, Jumper received a Marshall Scholarship to study at Cambridge and completed a PhD in theoretical chemistry at the University of Chicago. Born in 1985, he became the youngest chemistry Nobel laureate in over 70 years upon winning the prize.

      Neither Anthropic nor Jumper has revealed his new role at the company. However, the move supports Anthropic's growing focus on life sciences and computational biology. In April, the company acquired Coefficient Bio, a stealth biotech startup, for $400 million in stock. This acquisition brought valuable expertise in protein design and biomolecule modeling to Anthropic's healthcare division.

      This timing is also significant for Google, as reports from Bloomberg indicate that recent concerns have been raised by DeepMind employees over the company’s unclear offerings in AI coding tools, an area where Anthropic and OpenAI have made substantial progress. Anthropic's Claude Code has significantly contributed to the company's recent revenue growth, and DeepMind has seen engineers leaving for Anthropic at a nearly 11 to 1 ratio.

      Despite being a strong research organization, Google DeepMind’s back-to-back losses of Jumper and Shazeer raise concerns about retention, especially since Shazeer departed despite a lucrative deal, and Jumper leaves with a Nobel Prize associated with DeepMind.

      For Anthropic, hiring Jumper signals the company's strategic direction. His expertise, positioned at the crossroads of AI and fundamental science, aligns with Anthropic's investments in this area, though its ability to lead in this domain remains unproven. Whether Jumper can achieve breakthroughs outside of the lab where he made his contributions is uncertain, as neither his Nobel Prize nor the valuation of his new employer can assure success in this endeavor.