AI developer Anthropic is expanding into Australia and New Zealand with a new office in Sydney, signalling growing demand for its Claude models in the region and raising the prospect of additional AI compute infrastructure being deployed locally. The company said the Sydney office will become its fourth location in Asia-Pacific, joining existing sites in Tokyo, Bengaluru and Seoul.
The move reflects what Anthropic described as strong uptake of its AI tools among enterprises, startups and research organisations across Australia and New Zealand. According to Anthropic, both countries rank among the most active global users of its Claude platform relative to population, with Australia ranked fourth and New Zealand eighth in usage. The company said demand is particularly strong for coding, research and educational applications.
“We’re excited by the ways organisations in Australia and New Zealand are applying AI to areas of national importance – financial services, agricultural technology, clean energy innovation, healthcare delivery, cutting-edge deep tech and scientific research, along with AI transformation in the enterprise,” said Chris Ciauri, Anthropic’s managing director of international.
“Establishing a local presence will help us to develop strong partnerships in ANZ and ensure Claude is built with respect for the unique goals, opportunities, and challenges of the region,” he added.
Anthropic said its initial focus will be supporting enterprise, startup and research customers, including Australian organisations such as Canva, Quantium and Commonwealth Bank. The company also plans to build a local team in Sydney and deepen engagement with Australian institutions, with senior executives scheduled to visit the country later in March to formalise partnerships and meet with customers and policymakers.
Third party data centres
Beyond commercial engagement, Anthropic indicated it is exploring options to expand AI compute capacity in Australia, potentially using existing data centre infrastructure through third-party providers.
“We’re exploring opportunities to expand our compute capacity in Australia – a natural fit given our longstanding belief that democracies should lead in AI development, and one that aligns with the Australian government’s own ambitions to become a trusted destination for sustainable AI infrastructure,” the company said.
Initially, the company expects to rely on infrastructure already deployed in Australia through partners, particularly to support customers with local data residency requirements. Anthropic added that it is also holding early discussions about longer-term infrastructure investments in the region.
The Australian Financial Review reported that Anthropic executives are expected to visit Australia later this month to formalise partnership deals and discuss potential investment in local data centre capacity with policymakers.
The expansion comes amid intensifying competition among global AI developers to secure compute capacity and establish regional hubs close to customers. Anthropic, founded by former OpenAI researchers and led by CEO Dario Amodei (above), is widely seen as one of the leading rivals to OpenAI in the development of frontier AI models.
Demand for infrastructure to support these systems has become one of the fastest-growing segments of the digital infrastructure market. Anthropic’s potential move into Australian infrastructure would align with a broader push by governments and industry groups to position the country as a trusted destination for AI compute and sovereign data processing – essentially adding more evidence points for the National AI Plan.