Anthropic opens office in Seoul and expands partnerships across South Korea’s AI ecosystem
Anthropic just made a major move in Asia.
The company behind Claude, known for putting AI safety at the core of everything it does, has officially opened an office in Seoul, South Korea, and it arrived with a wave of moves that show just how strategic the country has become for the company’s global plans.
This wasn’t just about setting up a new address.
The week was packed with partnerships involving some of the biggest players in the Korean ecosystem, a memorandum of understanding (MOU) with the country’s Ministry of Science and ICT focused on safety and evaluation of artificial intelligence models, and a busy agenda with developers, startups, and researchers who are already building the future with Claude in hand.
From giants like NAVER, Samsung SDS, and LG CNS to nonprofits serving children and vulnerable communities, the reach of these announcements is far broader than it might seem at first glance.
Let’s break down what happened and what it means for the global AI landscape. 🚀
South Korea at the center of Anthropic’s global strategy
When a company the size of Anthropic decides to open an office in a new country, it rarely happens by chance. South Korea has a very specific profile that makes it a natural destination for anyone looking to grow in the artificial intelligence market with consistency and depth. The country has one of the most advanced digital infrastructures in the world, a corporate culture that’s deeply tech-oriented, and a startup ecosystem growing at an accelerating pace, especially in software, smart manufacturing, and digital services.
It’s no surprise that companies like Samsung, LG, and NAVER built global reputations from there, and now all of them are on the list of partnerships announced alongside Anthropic’s arrival in the country.
The Seoul office is led by KiYoung Choi, named as Anthropic’s Representative Director in Korea, bringing more than three decades of experience leading technology businesses in the country. In a statement about the opening, Choi highlighted that what he sees in Korea are teams that understand innovation and safety are two sides of the same coin. According to him, Korean organizations are building with Claude to bring the benefits of AI to millions of people around the world, and opening an office in Seoul gives Anthropic a long-term home for its work alongside the people shaping Korea’s AI leadership.
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This kind of move typically precedes a deeper expansion, with local hires, market-specific programs, and product adaptations tailored to regional needs, which in Claude’s case could include improvements to Korean language support and safety evaluations within that linguistic context. The office is already hiring for multiple roles, signaling that operations should scale quickly in the coming months.
It’s worth noting that South Korea has also been standing out in the global debate around artificial intelligence regulation. The country has been developing its own frameworks for assessing risks and responsibilities in the use of AI models, and having a physical presence there puts Anthropic in a privileged position to influence and actively participate in those discussions. For a company that was founded with the mission of building safe and reliable AI, this kind of engagement with governments and regulators isn’t a side note — it’s part of the business DNA.
The agreement with the Korean government and the focus on AI safety
One of the most significant aspects of this entire effort was the memorandum of understanding signed between Anthropic and South Korea’s Ministry of Science and ICT. This agreement formalizes collaboration around two core areas: AI safety and cybersecurity.
In practical terms, the two parties will work together on initiatives that include evaluating the safety of language models in Korean, in partnership with the Korea AI Safety Institute, and sharing information about AI-enabled cyber threats. This kind of cooperation goes beyond a simple statement of intent. It places the company in an active working relationship with the public sector, potentially contributing to the creation of standards, testing methodologies, and evaluation criteria that could influence not just Korea, but other countries closely watching how the Asian nation handles these issues.
AI safety is, by far, the most sensitive and at the same time most important topic in the industry right now. While many companies still treat the subject as a regulatory obligation to check off, Anthropic was founded with this topic as its central priority. The company emerged from a split with OpenAI precisely because its founders believed more effort and rigor needed to go into safety before rushing ahead with scaling models. That history gives Anthropic a unique credibility to sit at the table with governments and discuss these issues with both technical and philosophical depth.
The Korean agreement also comes at a time when the debate around AI regulation has picked up speed worldwide. The European Union is pushing forward with the AI Act, the United States is working through its own frameworks, and Asian countries like Japan, Singapore, and now South Korea are building their own approaches. Being present and engaged in this process puts Claude in a favorable position when those regulations start shaping which models and platforms can operate in certain contexts. It’s not just an ethical matter — it’s also a real competitive advantage for Anthropic in the long run. 🔐
Partnerships with major companies that show the scale of this move
The list of partnerships announced by Anthropic in South Korea is one of the most revealing aspects of this entire expansion, because it shows the company’s strategy goes well beyond any single industry. The original announcement details exactly who the key partners are and how each one is using Claude, and it’s worth looking closely to understand the breadth.
NAVER and the mass adoption of Claude Code
NAVER, a leader in cloud services and AI innovation across Asia, recently deployed Claude Code across its entire engineering organization. We’re talking about thousands of engineers using Claude Code to diversify their programming tools and maximize productivity in writing code. For those unfamiliar, NAVER is essentially the Google of Korea, with a massive audience and a strong track record in developing natural language technologies in Korean.
Nexon and game development with Claude
At Nexon, a global online gaming company, engineering teams use Claude Code to write, review, and ship code for live-service games played by millions of people around the world. This is a fascinating use case because the live gaming environment demands speed, precision, and an enormous ability to keep complex systems running without interruption.
LG CNS, Hanwha Solutions, and Samsung SDS
The country’s biggest conglomerates are also going all in. LG CNS, the IT services arm of the LG Group, is deploying Claude for thousands of employees who use the tool to develop software and deliver technology solutions for clients. The rollout is expected to extend across the entire LG Group.
Hanwha Solutions, the energy, chemicals, and advanced materials division of the Hanwha Group, is bringing Claude to global employees through AWS Bedrock, meeting strict data residency and security requirements in each region.
Meanwhile, Samsung SDS, the IT services arm of the Samsung Group, is deploying Claude for employees across Samsung Electronics. Teams are using Claude, including Claude Cowork and Claude Code, to advance daily knowledge work, agentic workflows, and software development at scale. 💡
Channel Corp and direct product integration
In the startup world, Channel Corp stands out by using Claude to power Channel Talk, its AI-driven customer service platform. The tool resolves customer queries and analyzes service and sales data to generate business insights, and it’s used by more than 230,000 companies across Korea, Japan, and the United States. Organizations like WRTN and Law&Company have also been working with Claude for years, showing that Anthropic’s presence in the country isn’t new — it’s just getting a lot more robust now.
Supporting academic research and social impact deployments
Anthropic’s work in South Korea isn’t limited to the private sector. To strengthen ties with the academic research community, the company will work with the National AI Research Lab (NAIRL), a consortium that brings together some of the country’s most prestigious universities: KAIST, Korea University, Yonsei University, and POSTECH.
Anthropic will provide Claude access to up to 60 researchers affiliated with NAIRL, supporting work in AI safety, model evaluation, alignment, robustness, and broader frontier AI research. This is the kind of investment that doesn’t generate immediate financial returns but builds the knowledge base that will sustain the entire industry in the years ahead.
In the nonprofit sector, Good Neighbors Korea, an NGO specializing in children’s rights, is deploying Claude to help its staff analyze program outcomes, navigate social welfare legislation and internal guidelines, and reduce the administrative workload that pulls professionals away from fieldwork.
Jeongsun Park, Managing Director of Good Neighbors Korea, noted that the organization is exploring how responsible AI transformation can support frontline social workers, protect vulnerable populations, and strengthen service delivery. According to her, with Claude deployed across the organization, the expectation is that efficiency gains will free staff from administrative burden so they can focus on what truly matters: serving children and vulnerable communities.
This kind of application reinforces a narrative the company has been carefully building since its founding: that safe and responsible AI needs to be accessible not just to those with deep pockets, but also to those with significant social impact to deliver. This positioning sets Anthropic apart from many other companies in the space, which tend to focus almost exclusively on the commercial potential of their models.
Developer community and builder events
According to Anthropic’s most recent Economic Index, South Korea ranks among the top twelve countries in the world for Claude.ai usage, with heavy concentration in technical and creative work. The country is also home to one of the most active developer communities on the platform, with startups building products for global markets from day one.
To support this community, the Claude for Startups program is already active in South Korea, and Claude Meetups have brought together hundreds of Korean developers since September 2025.
This week, Anthropic co-hosted the Claude Build Day alongside BASS Ventures, bringing together more than 100 Korean founders and developers with Anthropic’s engineering, product, and startup leaders for an afternoon of hands-on building. The company will also co-host a Push to Prod hackathon with Replit, Korea Investment Partners, and Korea Investment Accelerator. Participating startup teams will build with Claude Code and receive mentorship from Anthropic and Replit engineers.
This kind of direct engagement is critical because the success of an AI platform in a new market depends heavily on the developer community that grows around it. The more people build with Claude, the more use cases emerge, the more feedback flows back to the Anthropic team, and the more robust the product becomes for that specific reality. It’s a virtuous cycle that starts with exactly this kind of initiative.
What this means for the global AI landscape
Anthropic’s expansion into South Korea is a clear signal that the race for leadership in artificial intelligence is becoming increasingly global and decreasingly centered on the United States alone. Major companies in the space are realizing that Asian markets aren’t just sales destinations — they’re active partners in building the future of technology, with talent, resources, infrastructure, and, in South Korea’s case, a level of technological sophistication that few countries in the world can match.
For Claude specifically, this expansion represents a growth opportunity in a market that still has plenty of room for adoption of advanced AI tools in the enterprise environment. South Korea has a highly industrialized economy, with sectors ranging from semiconductors and electronics to entertainment and fashion, and all of them have concrete needs that language models like Claude can address — from customer service automation to content generation, data analysis, and strategic decision support.
What Anthropic is building in South Korea is essentially an expansion model that balances commercial growth with responsibility. It’s a combination that will become increasingly necessary as artificial intelligence embeds itself more deeply into the social and economic structures of each country. If this model works well there, it will likely serve as a blueprint for the company’s other expansions into equally complex and strategic markets around the world.
And in the global AI game, those who know how to grow responsibly will be far better positioned than those who only know how to grow fast. 🌏
