Seoul becomes Anthropic’s third office in Asia-Pacific as we continue our international growth

Source: Anthropic Date: 2025-10-23 URL: https://www.anthropic.com/news/seoul-becomes-third-anthropic-office-in-asia-pacific

Summary

Anthropic announced plans to open a Seoul office in early 2026, its third Asia-Pacific location after Tokyo and Bengaluru. Cited 10x run-rate revenue growth in Asia-Pacific over the past year; Korea ranks in Claude’s top five markets globally; Claude Code users in Korea grew 6x in four months; large business accounts in Asia-Pacific grew 8x annually. Named Korean adopters: Law&Company (legal AI) and SK Telecom (customer service).

Implications

• Geographic expansion thread. Seoul is the third APAC office in under two years (Tokyo October 2025, Bengaluru February 2026, Seoul early 2026). The velocity signals Anthropic treating APAC as a near-term revenue priority, not a long-term market development play.
• Korea-specific data. 6x Claude Code growth in four months in Korea is one of the fastest regional developer adoption figures Anthropic has cited. Korea’s strong tech infrastructure (SK Telecom, large developer community) makes it a natural early adopter market.
• Korea’s national AI strategy. Anthropic explicitly aligning with Korea’s government AI leadership ambitions mirrors the UK MOU and Rwanda MOU strategy — positioning as a partner to national AI programs, not just a vendor.
• Competitive pressure. SK Telecom’s customer service deployment is notable — Korean telcos are a target for every major AI vendor. Anthropic landing SKT is a competitive win against OpenAI/Google in a strategic enterprise account.
• Watch: Seoul office opening timing; whether Korea-specific model fine-tuning or localization gets announced; how Law&Company’s legal AI competes with incumbent Korean legal tech.