Anthropic has opened a commercial office in Singapore and formalised a partnership with the city-state’s government. The office is the company’s fifth base in the Asia-Pacific region, and the agreement was signed as a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with Singapore’s Ministry of Digital Development and Information.
The timing reflects how heavily Singapore already uses the company’s technology. By one measure, it is among the most active Claude markets anywhere.
Key Takeaways
- New office: Anthropic’s commercial office in Singapore is its fifth in Asia-Pacific.
- Government agreement: an MoU with the Ministry of Digital Development and Information, signed during Singapore International Cyber Week.
- Usage: Singapore ranks second out of 121 countries for Claude.ai usage relative to population size.
- Public sector: more than 1,500 technical staff at GovTech Singapore use Claude Code to modernise internal government systems.
- Safety work: Anthropic has worked with Singapore on multilingual model testing since 2023.
Who Was There and What Was Said?
Dale Finlay, Anthropic’s General Manager for ASEAN, confirmed the opening alongside co-founder Ben Mann and Michael Sellitto, the company’s Head of APAC Policy. Josephine Teo, Singapore’s Minister for Digital Development and Information, was also present.
Finlay described the move as a long-term commitment. Customers in Singapore, he said, hold AI to an extremely high standard, especially on reliability and security. Having a team on the ground, in his words, lets the company get closer to the organisations putting Claude to work on their hardest problems.
The MoU was signed by Permanent Secretary Kai Fong Chng for the Ministry of Digital Development and Information, together with Ben Mann, during Singapore International Cyber Week.
Why Singapore: The Usage Numbers?
The case for the office is partly in the data. Singapore ranks second among 121 countries in Claude.ai usage relative to population, with adoption nearly six times higher than standard demographic projections would suggest.
The adoption is visible in both government and business:
- GovTech Singapore: over 1,500 technical personnel use Claude Code to modernise internal government systems and speed up software delivery.
- Grab: the ride-hailing company runs BriX, an internal sales assistant powered by Claude. It saves sales representatives roughly 40,000 hours each quarter.
- Sea: uses Claude Code across its engineering units, including Shopee and Garena, and supplies the tooling to its Monee business.
- Supabase: the developer platform runs Claude Code within its core engineering teams.
- DBS: Southeast Asia’s largest banking group uses the system for commercial operations.
For regulated institutions that must keep data on shore, the setup supports in-region inference through Amazon Bedrock.
A Partnership With Earlier Roots
The MoU did not come out of nowhere. Anthropic joined Singapore’s Generative AI Evaluation Sandbox in 2023, working with the Infocomm Media Development Authority and the AI Verify Foundation. That trial produced multilingual red-teaming assessments covering English, Mandarin, Malay and Tamil, a useful test in a country where several languages are part of everyday life.
The new agreement formalises ongoing technical exchanges with Singapore’s security organisations, including the Cyber Security Agency of Singapore. Teams will also study how small and medium-sized enterprises adopt AI in practice.
Safety Testing and Community Engagement
Anthropic also gives employee-level access to METR, a non-profit group that evaluates frontier AI models, and keeps up technical discussions with Hugging Face. These outside checks sit alongside its regional programmes.
On the ground, the company’s developer events have drawn a crowd. The Builder Summit Singapore attracted over 300 software engineers, and a follow-up community gathering recorded more than 700 local builders.
What to Watch Next?
The MoU sets a framework, but the reporting so far does not spell out specific new public sector rollouts. The things worth watching are what the cooperation with Singapore’s security agencies produces, how the study of SME adoption turns into practical guidance, and whether the new office leads to further government deployments beyond GovTech’s existing use.
Frequently Asked Questions
What did Anthropic announce in Singapore?
- It opened a commercial office, its fifth in Asia-Pacific, and signed an MoU with Singapore’s Ministry of Digital Development and Information.
Who signed the MoU?
- Permanent Secretary Kai Fong Chng signed for the ministry, alongside Anthropic co-founder Ben Mann, during Singapore International Cyber Week.
How much does Singapore use Claude?
- Singapore ranks second out of 121 countries in Claude.ai usage relative to population size.
How is the Singapore government using Claude?
- More than 1,500 technical staff at GovTech Singapore use Claude Code to modernise internal government systems and accelerate software delivery.
Which companies in Singapore use Claude?
- Examples include Grab, Sea (including Shopee and Garena), Supabase and DBS.
Can banks keep their data in Singapore?
- For regulated institutions with strict on-shore data requirements, the architecture supports in-region inference through Amazon Bedrock.
Has Anthropic worked with Singapore before?
- Yes. It joined the Generative AI Evaluation Sandbox in 2023, working with the Infocomm Media Development Authority and the AI Verify Foundation on multilingual red-teaming in English, Mandarin, Malay and Tamil.
