Anthropic Opens Singapore Office and Signs AI Cooperation MOU with Singapore Government

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 (MOU) with the Singapore Ministry of Digital Development and Information.

MOU covers AI safety, evaluation, and responsible adoption

The MOU was signed by Kai Fong Chng, Permanent Secretary of the Ministry of Digital Development and Information, and Anthropic co-founder Ben Mann, on the sidelines of Singapore International Cyber Week. Minister for Digital Development and Information Josephine Teo and Michael Sellitto, Anthropic Head of APAC Policy, witnessed the signing.

The agreement sets out cooperation in AI safety, security, and model evaluation; research on AI adoption and its impact; and responsible adoption across the public and private sectors. 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 two sides also plan to share research and data, including from the Anthropic Economic Index, and to provide technical and policy expertise as Singapore develops its rules for AI.

Dale Finlay, General Manager of ASEAN at Anthropic, said the company is committed to Singapore for the long term, noting that its customers there hold AI to an extremely high standard for reliability and security. Anthropic added that having a team on the ground will bring it closer to organizations applying Claude to their hardest problems.

Sector adoption of Claude

In Anthropic's latest Economic Index, Singapore ranks second of 121 countries in Claude.ai usage relative to its population, at nearly six times what its size alone would predict.

In the public sector, more than 1,500 engineers and technical staff at GovTech Singapore have adopted Claude Code to modernize government systems and speed up software delivery. The Cyber Security Agency of Singapore is exploring how Claude could help strengthen the country's cyber defense.

In financial services, DBS, Southeast Asia's largest bank, works with Claude across use cases in its Singapore operations, including software development and day-to-day productivity, within its strict security and governance framework. 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.

Singapore's largest technology companies and startups are building with Claude as well. Grab powers its BriX sales assistant with Claude, saving sales teams approximately 40,000 hours every quarter, while Sea uses Claude to improve Shopee's customer service chatbot and to help thousands of employees write and debug code. Supabase, the developer platform with strong roots in Singapore, is also building with Claude Code.

Developer community and hiring

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

The Singapore office is now open and hiring. Anthropic's work with Singapore goes back to 2023, when it joined the Generative AI Evaluation Sandbox run by the Infocomm Media Development Authority and the AI Verify Foundation, later partnering with them on a red-teaming project in English, Mandarin, Malay, and Tamil.

Sources: Anthropic News Blog