JPMorgan blocks Hong Kong staff from Anthropic AI

What happened

JPMorgan Chase restricted its Hong Kong employees' access to Anthropic's AI models. This follows pressure from the US government, which blocked all foreign nationals from using Anthropic's most advanced models, prompting Anthropic to shut public access down altogether. Goldman Sachs has made a similar restriction.

Why it matters

The Financial Times reports that JPMorgan's decision represents a threat to Hong Kong's revival as an international financial centre, given that AI models are seeing growing adoption—particularly in coding. Anthropic itself has also barred all its products from use in mainland China, citing concern that Chinese AI firms could train their own models on its output (a technique called distillation attacks).

What to watch

The conflict between national security restrictions and financial hub competitiveness. Major banks are now caught between US government policy and the need to equip their international offices with current AI tools—a tension that may widen as other financial institutions face similar pressures.