Esteemed research scientist John Jumper announced on Friday his decision to leave Alphabet's DeepMind to join the AI startup Anthropic, marking another significant loss of core talent from the tech giant's artificial intelligence research division.
Jumper, who alongside Alphabet's Demis Hassabis was awarded the 2024 Nobel Prize, is best known as a co-developer of the breakthrough AI model AlphaFold. This model has predicted the structures of over 200 million proteins, dramatically accelerating the timeline for biological and medical research.
In a post on the social platform X, Jumper stated: "After nearly nine years, I've decided to leave Alphabet DeepMind and join Anthropic."
Tech behemoths like Meta and Alphabet are locked in a fierce battle for talent with emerging AI powerhouses such as Anthropic and OpenAI. All parties are competing aggressively to recruit top researchers to fuel the development of next-generation artificial intelligence systems.
Jumper's unexpected announcement comes just days after Alphabet's Vice President of Engineering and Gemini co-lead, Noam Shazeer, revealed his own departure to join OpenAI, which is reportedly preparing for an initial public offering.
Responding to Jumper's post, Hassabis commented: "What we achieved with AlphaFold changed the world, showing the industry the immense potential of AI to empower science and medicine, and charting a course for AI to benefit humanity."
Jumper's LinkedIn profile indicates he held the position of Vice President and Engineering Fellow at Alphabet DeepMind.
His move to Anthropic coincides with the startup being embroiled in a high-stakes legal and regulatory dispute with the United States government.
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