Anthropic to open first India office in 2026 as demand for AI tools grows

(Reuters) -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, aiming to tap into the country's growing appetite for AI tools. The move comes as AI adoption in India accelerates, fueled by rising enterprise tech spending, a growing pool of skilled talent, and increasing investor interest. India, home to nearly a billion internet users, is becoming a major battleground for global AI players. The Asian country has emerged as Anthropic's second-largest consumer market for its chatbot Claude, which competes with OpenAI's ChatGPT and is noted for its strong coding capabilities. Anthropic currently offers both free and paid tiers of Claude in India but has not yet introduced local currency pricing. Co-founder and CEO Dario Amodei is scheduled to visit India this week to meet with public officials and corporate partners, the $183 billion company said. The new office will be located in Bengaluru, widely recognized as the technology hub of India, and operations will start early 2026, Anthropic said. The location would serve as its second office in the Asia Pacific region after Tokyo, it added. OpenAI, backed by Microsoft, was formally registered as a legal entity in India in 2025 and plans to open its first India office in New Delhi later this year. OpenAI and Anthropic face strong competition in India from rivals such as 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. Last month, Anthropic announced plans to triple its international workforce to meet a surge in demand for its Claude AI models outside the United States. (Reporting by Mrinmay Dey in Bengaluru; Editing by Alan Barona, Janane Venkatraman and Sherry Jacob-Phillips)

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