Anthropic Sets Up Shop in Singapore Amid Regulatory Scrutiny

Overview

Anthropic, a developer of advanced AI models, has opened a Singapore office and signed a Memorandum of Understanding with the Singaporean government to address AI safety, security, and adoption.

Context

The company's co-founder, Benjamin Mann, emphasized the need for oversight of customer usage, citing the dual-use nature of advanced AI.

Singapore's Role

Singapore is not a speculative bet for Anthropic. The city-state ranks 2nd out of 121 countries in per-capita usage of Claude.ai, which is nearly six times the expected rate. Government adoption is already deep, with more than 1,500 engineers at GovTech Singapore using Claude Code, Anthropic's coding tool. Private-sector uptake is visible too, with companies like Grab and DBS using Claude.

Data Residency

Anthropic has a partial answer already in place. It currently offers in-region inference for Claude Sonnet 5 through Amazon Bedrock, so prompts and responses stay inside the country. The company also plans to establish local data residency for its models in Singapore, though that remains a stated plan rather than a finished product.

Regulatory Environment

The relationship has history. Anthropic's collaborations with Singapore date back to 2023. There is also a financial tie. GIC, Singapore's sovereign wealth fund, invested in Anthropic during its 2025 and 2026 funding rounds.

Conclusion

Anthropic frames its approach as combining capability with safety. The company stresses that a model's full capabilities may not be completely understood even after training is finished. Anthropic's model sits somewhere in between. Data can stay local through in-region inference, but the company retains some ability to oversee usage of its most powerful systems. Singapore appears comfortable with that compromise, at least for now.