Anthropic signs Singapore AI skills and safety agreement as it opens new office

The partnership includes plans to support small businesses and public officers, with more than 1,500 GovTech technical staff already using Claude Code

Anthropic has opened a Singapore office and signed a government agreement covering AI safety, skills and responsible adoption.

Anthropic has signed an agreement with Singapore’s government to cooperate on AI safety and responsible adoption, including plans to strengthen AI skills among businesses and public officers. Announced alongside its new Singapore office on October 14, the partnership brings together work on how people use AI and how its risks are tested.

The office is Anthropic’s fifth in Asia-Pacific. Singapore already ranks second among 121 countries in Claude.ai usage relative to population, according to the company’s latest Economic Index, at nearly six times the level its population size alone would predict.

The memorandum of understanding with the Ministry of Digital Development and Information sets out areas of cooperation rather than a defined training program. Anthropic says it will explore ways to help small and medium-sized businesses adopt AI responsibly and support the government’s efforts to build AI capability among public officers.

“Trust is critical for businesses, workers, and the public to use AI with confidence,” says Kai Fong Chng, the ministry’s Permanent Secretary.

Chng signed the agreement with Anthropic Co-founder Ben Mann on the sidelines of Singapore International Cyber Week.

From access to practical skills

Some government teams are already using Claude in their daily work. According to Anthropic, more than 1,500 engineers and technical staff at the Government Technology Agency of Singapore, known as GovTech Singapore, have adopted Claude Code to modernize government systems and speed up software delivery.

The agreement also covers research into AI adoption and its effects. Anthropic plans to share findings and data from its Economic Index with the government, alongside technical and policy expertise as Singapore develops its AI rules.

Commercial users offer further examples of how the technology is being put to work. DBS uses Claude for software development and day-to-day productivity within its security and governance framework. GIC, Singapore’s sovereign wealth fund, is rolling it out across investment and corporate services teams.

At Grab, Claude powers BriX, a sales assistant that Anthropic says saves sales teams approximately 40,000 hours each quarter and identifies new opportunities. These are company-reported results, separate from the activities planned under the government agreement.

Testing AI before trust is taken for granted

The safety work will focus on evaluating models, testing standards and responding to incidents. Technical exchanges are planned with Singapore’s AI safety, security and assurance institutions.

In its LinkedIn announcement, Anthropic said it planned to “exchange expertise with Singapore’s AI safety institutions on testing standards and incident response.”

That cooperation builds on earlier projects. Anthropic joined the Generative AI Evaluation Sandbox run by the Infocomm Media Development Authority and the AI Verify Foundation in 2023. It later worked with them on red-teaming, testing designed to uncover weaknesses in AI systems, across English, Mandarin, Malay and Tamil.

Local customers’ expectations are also shaping the expansion. Dale Finlay, General Manager of ASEAN at Anthropic, says: “Our customers here hold AI to an extremely high standard, especially when it comes to reliability and security.”

Developer activity accompanied the office opening. Anthropic says its Builder Summit Singapore brought together more than 300 developers with its engineering and product leaders, while a community ambassador meetup earlier in the week attracted more than 700 local builders.