Anthropic has opened an office in Singapore, its fifth in APAC, and signed a MoU with the Ministry of Digital Development and Information (MDDI).
The expansion will strengthen Anthropic’s local support for customers including DBS, Grab and GovTech Singapore.
Singapore ranks second among 121 countries for Claude.ai usage relative to population, according to Anthropic’s latest Economic Index, at nearly six times the level its population would predict.
“Our customers here hold AI to an extremely high standard, especially when it comes to reliability and security,”
said Dale Finlay, General Manager of ASEAN at Anthropic.
What the MOU covers
The MOU covers AI safety, security, model evaluation, research into AI adoption and its impact, and responsible deployment across the public and private sectors.
Anthropic plans to hold technical exchanges with Singapore’s AI safety institutions on model evaluation, testing standards and incident response.
It will also explore ways to strengthen AI skills, support adoption among small and medium-sized enterprises and build AI capabilities among public officers.
The company plans to share research and data, including findings from its Economic Index, and provide technical and policy expertise as Singapore develops its AI regulations.
The agreement builds on Anthropic’s participation in the 2023 Generative AI Evaluation Sandbox, run by the Infocomm Media Development Authority and AI Verify Foundation.
Anthropic later worked with both organisations on AI red-teaming exercises in English, Mandarin, Malay and Tamil.
Financial institutions among Anthropic’s Singapore customers
DBS uses Claude for software development and daily productivity across its Singapore operations, within the bank’s security and governance framework and as part of its broader AI efforts.
Singapore’s sovereign wealth fund GIC is also rolling out Claude across its investment and corporate services teams.
Regulated firms can access Claude through in-region inference on Amazon Bedrock, which Anthropic said helps them meet strict data processing requirements.
In the public sector, more than 1,500 GovTech Singapore engineers and technical staff use Claude Code to modernise government systems and accelerate software development.
The Cyber Security Agency of Singapore is also exploring Claude’s potential to strengthen cyber defence.
Meanwhile, Grab uses Claude to power BriX, a sales assistant that Anthropic said saves approximately 40,000 working hours each quarter.
Sea, the parent company of Shopee, Garena and Monee, uses Claude to help Shopee’s customer service chatbot respond faster and more accurately. Thousands of its employees also use Claude to write and debug code.
Featured image credit: Edited by Fintech News Singapore, based on image by bloodua via Magnific
