Anthropic Opens Singapore Office, Signs AI Safety MOU

Anthropic has expanded its Asia-Pacific operations by opening a new office in Singapore, its fifth in the region, and signing a Memorandum of Understanding with Singapore's Ministry of Digital Development and Information (MDDI).

The MOU was signed on 13 October 2026 on the sidelines of Singapore International Cyber Week, and the office is now open and hiring. The move deepens Anthropic's presence in a market where its Claude models already power business and government services used by millions of people daily.

The agreement 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. Kai Fong Chng, Permanent Secretary of MDDI, and Anthropic co-founder Ben Mann signed the MOU, with Minister for Digital Development and Information Josephine Teo and Michael Sellitto, Anthropic Head of APAC Policy, witnessing the signing.

Strategic Intent and Executive Validation

Anthropic frames the expansion as a long-term commitment rather than a single deployment. The company said its growing local team will help organizations across the region stay on the frontier with safe, capable AI, and that Singaporean customers hold AI to an extremely high standard on reliability and security.

We're committed to Singapore for the long term. 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.

—Dale Finlay, General Manager of ASEAN, Anthropic

Mann tied the partnership to Anthropic's founding position that capability and safety must advance together, while Chng said the partnership reflects the government's commitment to scaling responsible AI adoption, deepening capabilities in companies and government agencies, and delivering impact for Singapore.

Singapore has been a leader in responsible AI, with a long track record of investment in model testing and evaluation. 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

—Ben Mann, Co-Founder, Anthropic

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. 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.

—Kai Fong Chng, Permanent Secretary, Ministry of Digital Development and Information

Technical Cooperation and Deployment Benchmarks

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 does similar work with safety institutes worldwide, where sharing technical information gives governments a clearer view of frontier AI capabilities and risks while helping developers build safer models. Anthropic also plans 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 AI rules.

The relationship dates to 2023, when Anthropic joined the Generative AI Evaluation Sandbox run by the Infocomm Media Development Authority and the AI Verify Foundation, followed by a red-teaming project conducted in English, Mandarin, Malay and Tamil.

On the adoption side, Anthropic's latest Economic Index ranks Singapore second of 121 countries in Claude.ai usage relative to population, at nearly six times what its size alone would predict. More than 1,500 engineers and technical staff at GovTech Singapore have adopted Claude Code to modernize government systems and speed up software delivery, while the Cyber Security Agency of Singapore is exploring how Claude could strengthen national cyber defense.

In financial services, DBS, South-east Asia's largest bank, works with Claude across use cases including software development and day-to-day productivity within its security and governance framework, and GIC, Singapore's sovereign wealth fund, is rolling out Claude across its investment and corporate services teams.

Organizations in regulated sectors can now run Claude with in-region inference on Amazon Bedrock to meet strict data processing requirements. Among technology companies, Grab powers its BriX sales assistant with Claude, saving sales teams approximately 40,000 hours every quarter, while Sea uses Claude to help Shopee's customer service chatbot respond faster and more accurately, with thousands of employees writing and debugging code using the model. Developer platform Supabase is also building with Claude Code.

Regional Rollout and Developer Engagement

The company hosted Builder Summit Singapore, bringing more than 300 developers together with its engineering and product leaders, and Singapore's Claude community ambassadors held a meetup for more than 700 local builders earlier in the week.

Beyond Singapore, the MOU work is positioned to extend across Asia-Pacific, where Anthropic said sharing technical information with governments provides a clearer view of frontier AI capabilities and risks.

The company also plans 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.