Anthropic to open Bengaluru office in 2026, expand AI footprint in India

Anthropic, developer of Claude AI, will open a Bengaluru office in early 2026, expanding its presence in India to drive responsible AI growth and advance Indic language capabilities

After OpenAI, it is Anthropic — the AI research and development company behind the Claude model — that is expanding its global operations in India. The company on Tuesday announced plans to open an office in Bengaluru as part of its international expansion. Anthropic’s Co-Founder and Chief Executive Officer (CEO) Dario Amodei is visiting India this week to reaffirm the company’s commitment to developing responsible AI systems that promote social benefit and economic growth — aligned with India’s AI ambitions.

 

Anthropic will establish a dedicated local presence beginning with an office in Bengaluru that will open in early 2026 and will hire an in-market team focused on developing AI solutions for uniquely local use cases across the country.

 

Bengaluru was chosen for its strong talent pool and proximity to India’s enterprise ecosystem. It will be Anthropic’s second office in the Indo-Pacific region after Tokyo, Japan. The company also plans to announce further expansion in the region later this year.

 

“India is compelling because of the scale of its technical talent and the commitment from the Indian government to ensure the benefits of artificial intelligence reach all areas of society, not just concentrated pockets,” said Dario Amodei, Co-Founder and CEO, Anthropic.

 

“There is deep alignment between the challenges India is tackling and our mission as a company — from deploying AI across diverse languages and contexts to building frameworks for responsible governance. India’s AI ecosystem will play a central role in how AI develops globally and democratically, and we’re looking forward to working with organisations in India to pave a path for how beneficial AI can be scaled in a way that serves everyone,” he added.

 

Paul Smith, Chief Commercial Officer, Anthropic, said, “Our expansion comes at a pivotal moment when Indian enterprises and start-ups are seeking AI models they can trust. They need systems that combine frontier performance with the safety and reliability required to support critical business operations at scale. We see remarkable promise in India’s innovation ecosystem — the vibrant start-up and developer communities alongside Indian enterprises are building solutions that impact millions of lives globally.”

 

Claude’s growing presence in India

 

Users in India can access Anthropic’s Claude models through the Anthropic API, via Amazon Bedrock and Google Cloud Vertex AI. This enables Anthropic to serve enterprise customers in their preferred environments while maintaining rigorous security and compliance standards. Additionally, Claude Code, Anthropic’s agentic command line tool, is available to Indian developers seeking to accelerate their workflows through natural language commands in the terminal.

 

Anthropic has more than 300,000 business customers worldwide, and nearly 80 per cent of consumer usage of Claude now comes from outside the US. Indian businesses are already leveraging Claude’s capabilities across varied use cases, including AI coding platform Emergent, the company said. By integrating Claude into its workflows, Emergent has been able to democratise app development through its “vibe coding” platform and is seen as a key example of an AI success story in India.

 

India ranks second globally in Claude usage, behind only the US. Compared to usage in other countries, a disproportionately high share of Claude usage in India is for technical tasks and software development, such as mobile UI design and web app debugging, according to Anthropic’s recently released Economic Index.

 

Focus on Indic languages and social impact

 

Anthropic is investing heavily in enhancing Claude’s Indic language capabilities. The model already supports major Indian languages, and the company plans to launch enhanced performance in Hindi for consumer interfaces. It is also prioritising training in nearly a dozen additional languages, including Bengali, Marathi, Telugu, Tamil, Punjabi, Gujarati, Kannada, Malayalam, and Urdu. This deeper localisation will help strengthen public sector adoption, education programmes, and wider AI access across India.

 

In India, Anthropic intends to leverage Claude’s analytical capabilities for locally led, data-driven public health initiatives and to collaborate with educational organisations to pilot AI-powered learning tools that could reach millions of students. The company will also work with accelerators and social entrepreneurs to integrate AI into locally relevant solutions. Further details of these partnerships will be shared in the coming months.