Anthropic opens Singapore office and signs government AI safety agreement

Anthropic opened its Singapore office on October 14, 2026, pairing a larger local presence with a government agreement on AI safety and adoption. Its fifth Asia-Pacific office will support organizations using Claude, while the agreement with Singapore’s Ministry of Digital Development and Information covers testing, research and responsible use across business and government.

A local team for an established customer base

The office is open and hiring. Dale Finlay, Anthropic’s general manager for ASEAN, said a team on the ground would bring the company closer to customers whose demands center on reliability and security. The company describes Singapore as one of its most active markets worldwide, with Claude already used in business and government services.

Its customer examples span public services and finance. Anthropic says engineers and technical staff at GovTech Singapore use Claude Code to modernize government systems and speed software delivery. DBS uses Claude for software development and everyday productivity within the bank’s security and governance framework. GIC, Singapore’s sovereign wealth fund, is rolling it out across investment and corporate services teams.

Testing and adoption sit inside the same agreement

The memorandum of understanding was signed on the sidelines of Singapore International Cyber Week. The signatories were Anthropic co-founder Ben Mann and Kai Fong Chng, permanent secretary of the ministry. Digital Development and Information Minister Josephine Teo and Anthropic’s head of APAC policy, Michael Sellitto, witnessed the signing.

The agreement reaches beyond helping organizations deploy Claude. It covers AI safety, security and model evaluation, alongside research into adoption and its effects. Chng framed the partnership around enabling innovation while keeping pace with changing risks, saying trust was essential for businesses, workers and the public to use AI confidently.

Anthropic outlined several planned forms of cooperation under the agreement:

• Technical exchanges with Singapore’s safety, security and assurance institutions on model evaluation, testing standards and incident response.
• Work to strengthen AI skills, help small and medium-sized businesses adopt AI responsibly, and support AI capability among public officers.
• Sharing research and data, including Economic Index findings, and offering technical and policy expertise as Singapore develops AI rules.

Safety cooperation predates the office

Anthropic’s work with Singapore began in 2023, when it joined the Generative AI Evaluation Sandbox run by the Infocomm Media Development Authority and the AI Verify Foundation. It later worked with those organizations on a red-teaming project—testing models for weaknesses—in English, Mandarin, Malay and Tamil.

The planned technical exchanges extend that testing relationship. Anthropic says similar work with safety institutes elsewhere gives governments a clearer view of advanced AI capabilities and risks, while helping developers build safer models. That is the company’s stated purpose for sharing technical information, rather than a measured outcome of the new agreement.

The office opening also brought a developer gathering. Anthropic says its Builder Summit Singapore drew more than 300 developers to meet engineering and product leaders. Senior company leaders are in Singapore this week for the opening and meetings with customers, developers and policymakers.