Anthropic Opens Singapore Office, Partners With Government on AI Safety and Model Evaluation

Anthropic Establishes Singapore Presence With Government Partnership

Anthropic has opened an office in Singapore, its fifth in the Asia-Pacific region, and signed a memorandum of understanding with the Ministry of Digital Development and Information1

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. Co-founder Benjamin Mann and Kai Fong Chng, permanent secretary at the digital ministry, signed the agreement on the sidelines of Singapore International Cyber Week, with Minister Josephine Teo witnessing the ceremony1

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. The partnership focuses on AI safety and security, model evaluation, research on adoption, and responsible AI adoption across public and private sectors3

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Technical Exchanges and Model Evaluation Framework

The memorandum of understanding outlines technical exchanges with Singapore's AI safety, security and assurance institutions on AI model evaluation, testing standards and incident response1

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. Anthropic will share research and data with the government and provide technical and policy expertise as Singapore develops its AI rules3

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. The partnership will also explore ways to strengthen skills development, support small and medium-sized businesses in adopting AI responsibly, and build AI capabilities among public officers3

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. Mann stated that the partnership would help ensure the transition to powerful AI systems progresses responsibly in Singapore, across Asia-Pacific and around the world3

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Dual Use Risks Drive Oversight Approach

Benjamin Mann defended Anthropic's continued oversight of how customers use its frontier models, citing the dual use risks inherent in AI technology2

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. When asked about offering local data residency and sovereign AI solutions, Mann said Anthropic wanted customers to run their most sensitive workloads with the company while maintaining the ability to detect misuse2

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. In September, Anthropic introduced its Enterprise Frontier Safeguards program, designed to offer stronger data privacy protections, including zero data retention for eligible customers, while preserving safeguards to detect misuse2

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. The company routinely discloses attempts by state and non-state actors to use Claude AI for military and other harmful purposes, including one alleged attempt by a weapons development cell operating in northern Yemen to use the model for ballistic missile development2

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Singapore Emerges as Major Claude Market

Singapore ranks second among 121 countries in Claude.ai usage relative to population, with usage nearly six times higher than what its population size alone would predict, according to Anthropic's Economic Index1

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. More than 1,500 engineers and technical staff at GovTech Singapore have adopted Claude Code to modernize government systems and speed up software delivery1

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. In financial services, DBS Bank uses Claude for software development and day-to-day productivity, while GIC, Singapore's sovereign wealth fund, is rolling it out across its investment and corporate services teams1

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. Grab uses Claude to power BriX, its sales assistant, which saves its sales teams approximately 40,000 hours every quarter and identifies new sales opportunities1

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Open-Weight Models and Geopolitical Tensions

Mann took a firm stance on open-weight models, stating it's a technical fact that when you release open-weight models, there are no safeguards that are actually resilient2

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. He warned that countries encouraging an open-weight ecosystem should be aware this is part of a broader risk that the world is taking2

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. This positions Anthropic against the growing popularity of Chinese open-source models from labs like DeepSeek, Moonshot AI and z.ai, which are winning users due to their low price and near-frontier-level performance2

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. The jurisdiction matters significantly for responsible AI adoption. Anthropic bars Chinese companies and their foreign-owned entities from its frontier models and has pushed Washington for broader US export controls1

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. Michael Sellitto, Anthropic's head of APAC policy, stated the company believes there are substantial advantages for democratic, rights-respecting nations to lead in developing and deploying frontier AI2

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Market Context and Competition

Anthropic arrives as a latecomer to one of its most popular markets. OpenAI opened its Singapore office in late 2024 and committed S$300M, about $234 million, with roughly 200 roles to the local AI ecosystem1

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. Anthropic's announcement includes no headcount or investment figures1

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. Dale Finlay, General Manager of ASEAN at Anthropic, said the new office would help the company work more closely with local organizations using Claude, noting that customers in Singapore hold AI to an extremely high standard, especially when it comes to reliability and security3

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. Mann said Anthropic is working as quickly as it can to bring its frontier models onto infrastructure in Singapore, though he didn't share specific dates2

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