Nobel Laureate John Jumper Leaves DeepMind, Joins Anthropic

On June 19, John Jumper—lead author of AlphaFold and 2024 Nobel laureate in Chemistry—announced he's leaving Google DeepMind, where he spent nearly nine years, for Anthropic. What exactly he'll do at his new employer hasn't been announced, but the move is seen as a signal of the frontier labs poaching talent for "doing science with large models."

A Nobel Laureate Changes Employers

On June 19, John Jumper said on X that he's leaving Google DeepMind for Anthropic, ending nearly nine years of work at DeepMind. He's one of the lead authors of the protein-structure-prediction model AlphaFold, and in 2024 shared the Nobel Prize in Chemistry with DeepMind CEO Hassabis and the University of Washington's David Baker.

Why People Are Watching This

AlphaFold, which can compute a protein's three-dimensional structure directly from its amino acid sequence, is one of the most presentable examples of AI intervening in fundamental science. A Nobel-caliber figure moving from DeepMind to Anthropic sends a clear signal to observers: the frontier labs are starting to poach talent on the "doing science with large models" line. What exactly Jumper will be responsible for at Anthropic hasn't been disclosed yet; awaiting the official word.

via: TechCrunch