Anthropic poaches Nobel Prize-winning scientist from Google DeepMind

Published: 21 June 2026

Anna Zhadan
Contributor

John Jumper, the Nobel Prize-winning scientist behind AlphaFold, is leaving Google DeepMind to join Anthropic, one of Google’s biggest AI rivals.
His move reflects the intense battle for top AI talent, as companies like Anthropic, OpenAI, Google DeepMind, and Meta spend heavily to recruit leading researchers and engineers.
Google is facing more high-profile departures. Earlier this week, Noam Shazeer announced he was leaving to join OpenAI after helping lead Gemini model development.

Key Takeaways by nexos.ai, reviewed by Cybernews staff.

Nobel Prize winner and Google DeepMind Vice President John Jumper is leaving the company to join Anthropic, a major AI rival that is also backed by Google.

Jumper, who won the 2024 Nobel Prize in Chemistry alongside Google DeepMind CEO Demis Hassabis for developing AlphaFold, has played a key role in Google's AI coding development team, according to Bloomberg. The company has reportedly struggled to sell its coding development tools to businesses.

He led the creation of AlphaFold, a revolutionary AI system which can predict over 200 million protein structures, solving the 50-year-old “protein folding problem” and allowing scientists to understand how amino acid chains form functional 3D proteins in seconds.

“After nearly 9 years, I have decided to leave Google DeepMind and join Anthropic,” Jumper said in a post on X.

Jumper’s departure comes amid fierce competition among AI giants for top talent. Anthropic, OpenAI, Google DeepMind, and other leading developers are investing heavily in recruiting researchers and engineers.

OpenAI CEO Sam Altman has claimed that signing bonuses at Meta can reach $100m. Meanwhile, OpenAI's average stock-based compensation is about $1.5 million per employee, according to Bloomberg.

This week, Noam Shazeer, Google’s vice president of engineering and a co-lead of its Gemini AI models, also announced that he’s leaving to join OpenAI.

In response to Jumper’s post, Hassabis wrote: “What we achieved with AlphaFold changed the world, and showed the field what was possible with AI for science and medicine, lighting the way for how AI can benefit humanity.”

Anthropic has emerged as one of Google’s key rivals in recent years. It’s backed by major investors, including Amazon and Microsoft, and is known for its Claude models, which compete directly with Google's Gemini and OpenAI's ChatGPT.

Anthropic did not immediately respond to Reuters regarding the details of Jumper’s new role.