Anthropic to open first India office next year

Anthropic, the artificial intelligence startup backed by Alphabet’s Google and Amazon.com, said on Tuesday it will open its first office in India next year, as it looks to tap into the country’s growing appetite for AI tools.

India has emerged as Anthropic’s second-largest market for the consumer use of Claude, its large language model that competes with OpenAI’s ChatGPT. Claude has carved out a niche by demonstrating strong capabilities in coding, setting it apart in the crowded AI landscape.

The $183 billion company said its co-founder and CEO, Dario Amodei, will visit India this week to meet public officials and corporate partners.

The new office would be located in Bengaluru, widely recognised as a technology hub of India, and would begin operations early 2026, the company said. The location would serve as its second office in Asia Pacific region after Tokyo, it added.

OpenAI, backed by Microsoft, formally registered as a legal entity in India in August and has begun building a local team. It plans to open its first India office in New Delhi later in 2025.

The company faces strong competition in India from rivals like Google’s Gemini and AI startup Perplexity, both of which have launched offerings that make their advanced plans free for many users in the market.