Anthropic set to open SG office, names ASEAN GM

Anthropic is expanding its footprint in Asia Pacific with a new office in Singapore, as the artificial intelligence company looks to tap into growing local demand for its Claude AI model.

The Singapore office is set to open in October and will become Anthropic's fifth location in the region, joining Tokyo, Bengaluru, Seoul and Sydney. Senior Anthropic leaders are expected to visit Singapore for the opening, where they will meet customers, partners and policymakers.

The company is also hiring across a range of functions, with its careers site currently listing nine Singapore-based openings across five teams, including applied AI, finance and marketing.

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The expansion comes as Singapore emerges as one of Claude's strongest markets globally. According to Anthropic's latest Economic Index, Singapore ranks second among 121 countries for Claude.ai usage relative to population, with usage 5.81 times higher than would be expected based on the size of its population.

In Singapore, Anthropic plans to work with organisations ranging from startups and digital-native companies to large enterprises and the public sector. Demand has been particularly strong in regulated sectors such as financial services and government, the company said.

Anthropic also pointed to Singapore's concentration of technical talent, global businesses and research institutions, as well as its wider innovation ecosystem, as factors behind its decision to establish a presence in the market.

The company highlighted Singapore's push to use AI to transform industries and strengthen workforce capabilities while encouraging responsible adoption, which it said aligns with its own approach to balancing AI innovation and safety.

The Singapore push also comes with a new regional leadership appointment, with Dale Finlay joining Anthropic as general manager of ASEAN. Based in Singapore, Finlay will work with customers and partners across Southeast Asia.

He previously held go-to-market leadership roles at technology companies across Asia Pacific, including nearly a decade at Google Cloud in roles spanning AI, financial services and enterprise.

“From working with customers across Southeast Asia, I’ve seen that ambition isn't the blocker to AI adoption—trust is. Once that trust exists, the real work is embedding AI into how the business actually operates,” said Finlay.

He added, “Anthropic has built Claude around exactly those standards, and I look forward to working with customers here as they bring Claude into their most important work.”

In tandem, Chris Ciauri, managing director of international at Anthropic, said establishing a Singapore office was a natural next step as the company expands across Asia Pacific, given the country's high Claude usage per capita.

"A presence here means we can hire the people who know this market best, and work side by side with local customers and partners building with Claude," he noted. 

The office opening builds on Anthropic's growing presence in Singapore. In June, the Claude-maker was hiring for regional roles spanning accounting, product support and economic research, including an APAC accounting lead tasked with building its regional accounting team and overseeing finance operations as the company scaled across Asia Pacific.

The expansion also comes amid a wider debate over the pace and safety of AI development. Earlier this week, Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei called on the industry to slow the development of frontier AI models, arguing that more time was needed for safety and alignment work to keep pace with rapidly advancing capabilities.

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