Google DeepMind's John Jumper joins Anthropic

John Jumper, the Google DeepMind researcher behind AlphaFold and a Nobel Prize in chemistry, is leaving the company to join Anthropic. His move comes just days after another senior Google AI leader, Noam Shazeer, left for OpenAI, adding to concerns about talent leaving DeepMind for rival labs. Jumper spent nine years at Google DeepMind and was also reportedly involved in enterprise coding tools. His departure is notable because DeepMind has long been seen as strongest in AI for science, and Jumper was one of its most prominent figures in that area. The move highlights the competitive pressure among major AI labs in 2026, with Anthropic and OpenAI continuing to attract top researchers from Google.