Anthropic has opened a new office in Singapore, an expansion that makes it the company’s fifth location in the Asia-Pacific region, alongside the signing of a memorandum of understanding with Singapore’s Ministry of Digital Development and Information. The memorandum focuses on cooperation in AI safety and security and model evaluation, as well as examining the technology’s adoption and impact in the public and private sectors.
The memorandum was signed by Kai Foong Cheng, the ministry’s permanent secretary, and Ben Mann, Anthropic’s co-founder, on the sidelines of Singapore International Cyber Week. The plans include technical exchanges with Singaporean institutions concerned with AI safety, assurance, and security, as well as cooperation on testing standards and incident response.
Cooperation Beyond Commercial Use
Anthropic said the cooperation would include sharing research and data with the government, including material related to the Anthropic Economic Index, and providing technical and policy expertise as Singapore develops its own AI regulations. The company also plans to support skills development, help small and medium-sized enterprises adopt the technology responsibly, and strengthen the capabilities of government employees.
Anthropic’s cooperation with Singapore dates back to 2023, when the company joined the generative AI testing environment operated by the Infocomm Media Development Authority and the AI Verify Foundation. The two sides later collaborated on a project to test models using red teaming in English, Chinese, Malay, and Tamil.
Claude’s Expansion Across Singaporean Institutions
According to the company’s latest economic index, Singapore ranks second among 121 countries in Claude.ai usage relative to population, at a rate nearly six times what its population size alone would predict.
In the government sector, more than 1,500 engineers and technical employees at GovTech Singapore have adopted Claude Code to modernize government systems and accelerate the development of digital services. Singapore’s Cyber Security Agency is also exploring the use of Claude to strengthen cyber defense.
DBS, Southeast Asia’s largest bank, uses Claude for software development and daily productivity within its Singapore operations, with its use subject to the bank’s own security and governance framework. GIC, Singapore’s sovereign wealth fund, is also deploying Claude among its investment and corporate services teams. For regulated sectors, the Claude service through Amazon Bedrock enables inference within the region, helping institutions meet data-processing requirements.
Grab uses Claude to power the BriX sales assistant, which gives sales teams approximately 40,000 hours each quarter and helps identify new opportunities. Sea also benefits from Claude to improve responses from Shopee’s customer service chatbot and for code writing and debugging, while Supabase, which has deep roots in Singapore, is building with Claude Code.
What Is Changing in Practice?
The move is not limited to opening a local office; Anthropic is linking its commercial presence to institutional cooperation on model testing, incident response, and policymaking. This places Singapore in the position of a testing and governance partner, in addition to being an active market for Claude. However, the memorandum outlines general areas of cooperation and does not present a timeline or detailed implementation commitments in the material, making its subsequent practical results something that will need to be monitored.
The company held a developer summit in Singapore that brought together more than 300 developers, while more than 700 participants attended a gathering organized by the local Claude community ambassador group. Anthropic announced that the office is open for hiring.