Anthropic opens Singapore office in October, hires Dale Finlay

Anthropic's Singapore move marks its fifth location in Asia-Pacific, following hubs in Tokyo, Seoul, Bengalaru and Sydney. The company framed it as a natural next step, citing high per-capita Claude usage. Singapore has become a "port of entry" to Southeast Asia thanks to its stable political environment and business-friendly policies. The same pull has drawn the likes of Cognition and Sierra to base their ASEAN or Asia headquarters there. Singapore itself is aiming to become an "AI nation" and has committed over $1 billion Singapore dollars (over $770 million) to public AI capabilities. The scramble for regional talent is already visible. Finlay's move from OpenAI comes as OpenAI itself just hired Sandhya Devanathan, Meta's head for South Asia, as its ASEAN and Australia head. The hiring churn suggests senior regional talent is scarce. Success for Anthropic likely hinges on whether its top-usage ranking converts into enterprise contracts, and on whether an office opening in October yields the local presence its rival already has.