Google Deepmind has lost another senior researcher as Nobel laureate John Jumper departs for Anthropic after nearly nine years. Jumper shared the 2024 Nobel Prize in Chemistry with Deepmind CEO Demis Hassabis for developing AlphaFold, an artificial intelligence system that revolutionised protein structure prediction. Hassabis described the departure as a blow, noting that Jumper was an extraordinary partner who helped change the world through their work. This exit follows Noam Shazeer, a co-lead on Gemini, who recently left for OpenAI to lead the reasoning approach powering Google’s latest models. Earlier, Deepmind also lost David Silver, a lead researcher behind AlphaGo and AlphaZero, who started a new venture focused on world models and reinforcement learning. Rumours suggest that Gemini 3.5 Pro, set to launch in late June, may struggle to compete with recent innovations from Anthropic and OpenAI.
The rapid succession of departures signals a significant shift in talent distribution within the artificial intelligence sector. Losing key figures like Jumper and Shazeer weakens Deepmind’s internal research capacity while strengthening its rivals. Anthropic and OpenAI are effectively poaching the very minds responsible for Google’s past successes, creating a competitive imbalance. This trend raises concerns about whether Deepmind can maintain its pace of innovation without its most experienced leaders. The timing exacerbates the issue, as the company prepares to release a major model update that insiders claim may lack the necessary competitive edge.
* John Jumper, a Nobel Prize winner, has left Google Deepmind to join Anthropic after nine years.
* Noam Shazeer and David Silver have also departed, indicating a pattern of talent drain.
* Gemini 3.5 Pro faces potential challenges against newer models from OpenAI and Anthropic.
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