US-based AI company Anthropic announced Wednesday it is expanding its Asia-Pacific operations by opening a new office in Singapore — its fifth in the region—and signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) with the Singapore Ministry of Digital Development and Information.
The company said Singapore is one of its most active markets anywhere in the world, and Claude is already powering Singaporean business and government services used by millions of people every day, like GovTech Singapore, Grab, and DBS. Its growing local team will ensure these organizations and many more stay on the frontier with safe, capable AI.
“We are committed to Singapore for the long term,” said Anthropic General Manager of ASEAN Dale Finlay. “Our customers here hold AI to an extremely high standard, especially when it comes to reliability and security. Having a team on the ground means we can get even closer to the organizations putting Claude to work on their hardest problems.”
Kai Fong Chng, Permanent Secretary of the Ministry of Digital Development and Information, and Anthropic Co-Founder Ben Mann signed the MOU on the sidelines of Singapore International Cyber Week, according to a statement.
Minister for Digital Development and Information Josephine Teo and Michael Sellitto, Anthropic Head of APAC Policy, witnessed the signing. It sets out areas of cooperation in AI safety, security, and model evaluation; research on AI adoption and its impact; and responsible adoption across the public and private sectors.
“Singapore has been a leader in responsible AI, with a long track record of investment in model testing and evaluation,” said Mann. “We founded Anthropic on the belief that capability and safety have to go hand in hand. With this MOU, we’ll partner with Singapore to help ensure the transition to powerful AI goes well here, across Asia-Pacific, and around the world.”
“Singapore’s approach to AI has always been to enable innovation while keeping pace with its evolving risks. Trust is critical for businesses, workers, and the public to use AI with confidence,” said Chng. “This partnership with Anthropic reflects the Government’s commitment to scaling up the responsible adoption of AI, deepening capabilities in our companies and government agencies, and delivering impact for Singapore.”
Anthropic said its work with Singapore goes back to 2023, when the company joined the Generative AI Evaluation Sandbox run by the Infocomm Media Development Authority and the AI Verify Foundation. Anthropic later partnered with them on a red-teaming project in English, Mandarin, Malay, and Tamil.
Under the MOU, Anthropic plans to hold technical exchanges with Singapore’s AI safety, security, and assurance institutions on model evaluation, testing standards, and incident response.
The company said it will do similar work with safety institutes around the world, where sharing technical information provides governments with a clearer view of frontier AI capabilities and risks, while helping developers build safer models.
“We will also look for ways to strengthen AI skills in Singapore, help small and medium-sized businesses adopt AI responsibly, and support the government’s goal of building AI capability among public officers,” the company said.
“We plan to share research and data with the government, including from the Anthropic Economic Index, and to offer technical and policy expertise as Singapore develops its rules for AI,” the company added.
Anthropic to open first Southeast Asia office in Singapore in October