Anthropic Expands European Presence: Poaches Google DeepMind Talent for New Zurich Office

Anthropic poaches Google DeepMind talent to lead new European office

Anthropic announced to Euronews Next on Thursday in a Europe exclusive that Neil Houlsby would be leading the new Zürich office. One of the most influential US artificial intelligence (AI) companies Anthropic has poached a Google DeepMind research scientist to lead its newest European office in Zurich. Despite having smaller resources, the Claude AI assistant maker is seen as a competitor to larger rivals such as OpenAI and Google's AI chatbot. Anthropic is valued at around $60 billion (€58 billion), which is almost $100 billion less than OpenAI. Anthropic calls itself an AI safety research company and was founded by former OpenAI executives and researchers brother and sister Dario and Daniela Amodei. It is based in San Francisco and has made various hires from OpenAI among other tech companies. Anthropic announced to Euronews Next on Thursday in a Europe exclusive that Neil Houlsby, who was previously a research scientist and manager at Google DeepMind, would be joining the company to head the Zürich office. Prior to his 10 years at Google DeepMind, Houlsby was studying for a PhD in machine learning at the University of Cambridge in the United Kingdom. It is Anthropic's third European office to open after London in 2023 and Dublin a year later. "It's an incredibly exciting time for AI research globally, and Switzerland has long been a centre for super-smart people doing world-class research. I'm thrilled to have the opportunity to lead Anthropic's team in Zürich, where we're working on further developing multimodal capabilities for Claude's LLM training," Houlsby said in a statement. "We're already building a strong team in Zürich, and we're looking for great researchers and engineers to join us - people with a passion for developing AI for the global good and working at the cutting-edge frontier of AI and multimodal LLMs like Claude," he added. The announcement comes as the Artificial Intelligence Action Summit was held in Paris this week. US Vice President JD Vance on Tuesday warned against "excessive regulations" on AI, criticising Europe's legislation such as the Digital Services Act (DSA) and its online privacy rules. Anthropic's CEO, however, said in a statement that "international conversations on AI must more fully address the technology's growing security risks".

Anthropic Taps Former Google AI Researcher to Head Zurich Office

Anthropic appointed a former Google researcher to lead its newly-established office in Zurich, poaching talent from the tech giant as the artificial-intelligence startup expands in the Swiss city. The company said Thursday that Neil Houlsby, previously senior staff research scientist and manager at Google DeepMind, would head its Zurich hub, Anthropic's third office in Europe after London and Dublin. The Wall Street Journal reported late last year that Anthropic had registered an office in Zurich and started hiring locally. ChatGPT maker OpenAI also set up an office in Zurich, its fifth location in Europe after Dublin, London, Paris and Brussels. Houlsby's appointment underscores efforts from AI startups to poach talent from tech giants like Alphabet's Google that have long had a presence in the city. OpenAI said in December that it recruited AI researchers Lucas Beyer, Alexander Kolesnikov and Xiaohua Zhai for its Zurich office from Google DeepMind, the company's AI research lab. "As a global center of excellence for AI research, Zurich is a natural home for Anthropic to grow its European presence," Anthropic's Chief Science Officer Jared Kaplan said in a statement. The foray into Switzerland from two top startups in the AI scene comes as companies seeking to harness large-language models face pressure elsewhere in Europe. European Union lawmakers last year approved the world's most comprehensive legislation yet on artificial intelligence. The rules, which are set to take effect gradually over several years, ban certain uses of the technology, roll out new transparency guidelines and require risk assessments for AI systems that are deemed high-risk. Earlier this week, U.S. Vice President JD Vance told world leaders gathered in Paris for an AI summit that "excessive regulation of the AI sector could kill a transformative industry just as it's taking off." News Corp, owner of Dow Jones Newswires and The Wall Street Journal, has a content-licensing partnership with OpenAI.