Anthropic Expands U.K. Operations as Claude Demand Grows

Anthropic is significantly expanding its London presence, securing 158,000 square feet for about 800 people due to growing demand for its Claude chatbot.

Anthropic said it was significantly expanding its presence in London, betting on the U.K. capital to bolster its overseas operations as demand for its Claude chatbot keeps growing.

The San Francisco-based artificial-intelligence company said it had secured 158,000 square feet of office space in London's Knowledge Quarter at Regent's Place for about 800 people, paving the way for a sizable boost to headcount as Anthropic currently employs over 200 people in London.

The announcement comes a month after Anthropic said it was adding office space in central Dublin to bring in an additional 200 employees, the latest effort from the company to shore up its business outside the U.S. as demand for Claude from enterprises and coders in Europe is on the rise.

Anthropic counts more than 300,000 enterprise customers, and its coding tool for developers -- Claude Code -- exceeded $2.5 billion in run-rate revenue, more than double since the beginning of the year.

The company raised $30 billion in Series G funding at a $380 billion valuation, building momentum as it eyes an initial public offering that could come as soon as this year, The Wall Street Journal has reported.

Pip White, who oversees Anthropic's operations in the U.K. and Ireland, said the company was scaling in Europe to satisfy demand for its AI products, calling London one of its most important research and commercial hubs outside the U.S. In Europe, Anthropic has offices in Zurich, Paris and Munich aside from London and Dublin.

Anthropic's rival OpenAI is also doubling down on London, where it currently employs around 200 people. The ChatGPT maker said earlier this week that it had secured 88,500 square feet at Regent Quarter in King's Cross to accommodate more than 500 people next year.

OpenAI also cited demand for products like ChatGPT and coding tool, Codex, to justify the expansion, saying it wanted to make the U.K. capital its largest research hub outside the U.S.

Last year, OpenAI agreed to roll out AI infrastructure in the U.K. with Nvidia and AI startup Nscale to satisfy its power needs in the country as part of a project dubbed Stargate U.K. However, the company recently said it was halting the project due to regulation and energy costs.

A company spokesperson said OpenAI would move forward with the project "when the right conditions such as regulation and the cost of energy enable long-term infrastructure investment."

News Corp, owner of Dow Jones Newswires and The Wall Street Journal, has a content-licensing partnership with OpenAI.