Nobel Prize winner John Jumper is leaving Google DeepMind for Anthropic, ending a nearly nine-year run at the company best known for building AlphaFold.

Jumper announced the move on Friday in a post on X, saying he is joining Anthropic after almost nine years at DeepMind. In his message, he thanked DeepMind CEO Demis Hassabis for giving him the chance to lead the AlphaFold team soon after he completed his PhD, and said the company taught him a great deal about how to do scientific research well.

He also described DeepMind as a special place and said he will continue following the company’s work with interest. DeepMind and Anthropic are among the most prominent names in the AI sector, making Jumper’s departure notable as competition for top researchers remains intense.

Jumper and Hassabis shared the 2024 Nobel Prize in chemistry for their work on AlphaFold, the AI system that predicts protein structures from genetic sequences. The project has been one of DeepMind’s most celebrated achievements and helped establish the company as a leader in applying AI to scientific discovery.

Bloomberg reported that Jumper had been a key figure on Google’s effort to build coding tools, an area where the company has faced difficulty in attracting business customers. The report did not say what role Jumper will take at Anthropic or when he will start.

His move comes as talent shifts continue across the AI industry. Character AI co-founder Noam Shazeer also said this week that he is leaving DeepMind, though he is heading to OpenAI rather than Anthropic.

Anthropic, founded by former OpenAI employees, has emerged as one of the strongest competitors in the generative AI market. Hiring a scientist of Jumper’s stature could bolster its research profile as the company races rivals to develop more capable models and tools.

DeepMind, meanwhile, has seen some of its most recognizable names move on even as it remains central to Google’s AI strategy. Jumper’s departure removes one of the scientists most closely associated with AlphaFold, a milestone project that was widely seen as a breakthrough for biology and machine learning.

The transition underscores how competitive the AI research market has become, with leading labs vying not only for model performance and customers but also for the scientists who helped define the field’s recent progress.