News & Updates
The latest news and updates from companies in the WLTH portfolio.
China Warns of "Backdoor" Security Risk in Anthropic's Claude Code
A cybersecurity platform run by China's industry ministry has warned that it found a serious security "backdoor" risk in Anthropic's AI coding tool, Claude Code. The National Vulnerability Database, affiliated with the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, posted the alert on Wednesday. It said the tool's built-in monitoring can transmit sensitive information, including a user's location and identity, to a remote server without consent. Key Takeaways * China's National Vulnerability Database said Claude Code contains a "security back-door vulnerability that poses a serious threat," affecting versions 2.1.91 through 2.1.196. * That version range spans releases from April 2 to June 29; the latest build as of Wednesday was 2.1.204, three point releases past the flagged cutoff. * Anthropic said the code was an experiment earlier this year to protect against distillation, and noted its policy bars use by entities majority-owned by China-headquartered organizations. Claude Code is an agentic tool that can generate, debug, and review code from user prompts. The NVDB statement, translated from Chinese, said the affected versions could send data including a user's location and identity to a remote server without permission. The agency advised users to uninstall the flagged versions or upgrade to a secure release, and to tighten controls on external network access and traffic monitoring within core business networks. Anthropic pushed back. Asked about the warning, the company said the "backdoor" was an experiment earlier this year meant to protect against distillation, the practice of extracting a model's capabilities to train a rival. It also pointed out that its policy prohibits use by entities majority-owned by China-headquartered organizations, meaning the flagged users were not supposed to be running the product. A Wider US-China Tech Standoff The alert lands as the US-China AI contest intensifies. Last month Anthropic accused Chinese company Alibaba of trying to extract its AI capabilities, which are not officially available in China. Alibaba did not comment at the time, and has since ordered employees to stop using Anthropic tools for work starting July 10, directing them to its own coding platform instead. Many developers in China still reach US tools through VPNs and proxies; in March, a Xiaomi AI developer said at a state forum that many were using Claude Code. The technical claim itself is not unusual on its face. Most modern developer tools send telemetry, crash reports, and usage data back to their makers, and whether that amounts to a backdoor depends on scope, disclosure, and consent, none of which the notice specified. Independent researchers outside China have not yet corroborated the claim, and no CVE has been filed against the affected versions. Anthropic has said the users being advised to uninstall were not meant to have access in the first place. The bigger story is a market splitting along national lines. The episode adds Anthropic to a short list of US labs formally warned against inside China, part of a decoupling that is reshaping how enterprise AI gets sold. Anthropic has spent the year expanding Claude Code across new surfaces and growing its paying base, even as US export controls and cross-border tensions complicate its reach. The distillation fight also has history: the company previously cut off a rival's access over terms-of-service violations, underscoring how aggressively frontier labs now guard their models. For most Chinese users the practical impact is limited, since the product was never officially sold there, but the reputational note becomes a talking point in markets where it does compete.
OpenAI unveils long-awaited "super app" as rivalry with Anthropic intensifies
ChatGPT Work will be available on web and mobile from July 9, including a desktop app and hosted websites feature for easy content creation and sharing. WASHINGTON - OpenAI showcased a new AI agent on July 9 meant to help white-collar workers access the power of coding tools without the sticker shock. The agent, called ChatGPT Work, combines OpenAI's popular chatbot with its AI coding tool, Codex, to create documents, presentations and websites, the company said. The service is powered by OpenAI's most advanced AI model, GPT-5.6, which also debuted on July 9. That model's launch was delayed in June at the US government's request over national security fears. ChatGPT Work is a direct answer to Anthropic's Claude Cowork, an agent it launched in January that is capable of planning and executing multi-step tasks autonomously. The launch reflects intensifying competition to build and sell AI tools for professional use, as technology companies seek to capitalise on rising demand for autonomous agents that can complete complex tasks with minimal human input. Anthropic and OpenAI - both of which are preparing for possible public offerings soon - are fighting for enterprise business, which is more lucrative than selling products to consumers. Both ChatGPT Work and Claude Cowork are designed for non-coders who want to tap into the abilities of AI coding tools, which are often more capable than standard chatbots but require specialised knowledge. OpenAI officials emphasised that its new offerings would be both cheaper and more broadly available than its rivals' products. The company launched three different sizes of its 5.6 model. "You can apply the model's ability to code to solve problems across every industry," said Ty Geri, product manager for ChatGPT Work, in an interview. Geri described OpenAI's 5.6 model as "competitive with models that are far, far more expensive at twice the speed and much, much cheaper". The July 9 announcement also underscores a growing concern among companies about the high cost of using such AI tools. Max Weinbach, analyst at consulting firm Creative Strategies, said the smallest version of OpenAI's new model can complete a task about as well as the largest version - but at one-fifth of the cost. "This is the first time where I've seen the small models complete these kinds of tasks," he said. Before this launch, OpenAI's agentic offerings included Operator and deep research, later consolidated into ChatGPT Agent for individual users, as well as Workspace Agents for enterprise workflow automation. ChatGPT Work will roll out on July 9 on web and mobile, beginning with Pro, Enterprise and Edu users, and will expand to Plus and Business users over the next few days. OpenAI also announced a new ChatGPT desktop application and a hosted websites feature to let users build and share websites directly through ChatGPT Work. REUTERS
OpenAI unveils long-awaited "super app" as rivalry with Anthropic intensifies
OPENAI showcased a new AI agent on Thursday (Jul 9) meant to help white-collar workers access the power of coding tools without the sticker shock. The agent, called ChatGPT Work, combines OpenAI's popular chatbot with its AI coding tool, Codex, to create documents, presentations and websites, the company said. The service is powered by OpenAI's most advanced AI model, GPT-5.6, which also debuted on Thursday. That model's launch was delayed last month at the US government's request over national security fears. ChatGPT Work is a direct answer to Anthropic's Claude Cowork, an agent it launched in January that is capable of planning and executing multi-step tasks autonomously. The launch reflects intensifying competition to build and sell AI tools for professional use, as technology companies seek to capitalise on rising demand for autonomous agents that can complete complex tasks with minimal human input. Anthropic and OpenAI -- both of which are preparing for possible public offerings soon - are fighting for enterprise business, which is more lucrative than selling products to consumers. Both ChatGPT Work and Claude Cowork are designed for non-coders who want to tap into the abilities of AI coding tools, which are often more capable than standard chatbots but require specialised knowledge. OpenAI officials emphasised that its new offerings would be both cheaper and more broadly available than its rivals' products. The company launched three different sizes of its 5.6 model. "You can apply the model's ability to code to solve problems across every industry," said Ty Geri, product manager for ChatGPT Work, in an interview. Geri described OpenAI's 5.6 model as "competitive with models that are far, far more expensive at twice the speed and much, much cheaper." Thursday's announcement also underscores a growing concern among companies about the high cost of using such AI tools. Max Weinbach, analyst at consulting firm Creative Strategies, said the smallest version of OpenAI's new model can complete a task about as well as the largest version - but at one-fifth of the cost. "This is the first time where I've seen the small models complete these kinds of tasks," he said. Before this launch, OpenAI's agentic offerings included Operator and deep research, later consolidated into ChatGPT Agent for individual users, as well as Workspace Agents for enterprise workflow automation. ChatGPT Work will roll out on Thursday on web and mobile, beginning with Pro, Enterprise, and Edu users, and will expand to Plus and Business users over the next few days. OpenAI also announced a new ChatGPT desktop application and a hosted websites feature to let users build and share websites directly through ChatGPT Work. REUTERS
China warns of 'security backdoor' in Anthropic AI coding tool
BEIJING: A Chinese industry regulator warned users on July 8 of a "security backdoor" embedded in versions of US artificial intelligence (AI) company Anthropic's coding tool, Claude Code. The alleged backdoor could allow the software to "transmit sensitive information", including users' locations and identity-related identifiers, back to Anthropic's servers without users' consent, said China's National Vulnerability Database (NVDB), a cybersecurity platform. Claude Code is an AI coding agent that can generate computer code, debug software and review code based on user prompts. San Francisco startup Anthropic blocks users and companies in China and other nations it deems adversarial from accessing its products, but it is still possible to use them in the country through VPN or third-party proxy services. The NVDB, which is affiliated with China's Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, said on its website it had recently "detected that the AI coding tool Claude Code contains security backdoor risks, posing a severe threat". Anthropic has not responded to AFP requests for comment on the allegations, which first emerged in specialist tech media. The NVDB advised relevant institutions and users "to conduct a comprehensive check immediately" and "promptly uninstall or upgrade to the latest secure version from which the relevant backdoor code has been removed". It also urged organisations to strengthen network traffic monitoring to prevent the unauthorised leakage of sensitive data. Chinese tech giant Alibaba told employees that the use of Claude Code would be banned from July 10 due to security concerns, people familiar with the matter said. Anthropic has previously accused Alibaba of reverse-engineering its AI models to mimic their abilities in a process known as "distillation". Claude Code engineer Thariq Shihipar responded in an X post last week to reports alleging that the tool was tracking certain data from Chinese users. "This is an experiment we launched in March that was meant to prevent account abuse from unauthorised resellers and protect against distillation," Shihipar wrote. "The team has landed stronger mitigations since then and we've actually been meaning to take this down for a while... this should be fully rolled back in tomorrow's (July 2) release." -- AFP
China warns of "security backdoor" in Anthropic AI coding tool
Beijing -- A Chinese industry regulator warned users on Wednesday of a "security backdoor" embedded in versions of U.S. artificial intelligence giant Anthropic's coding tool, Claude Code. The alleged backdoor could enable the software to "transmit sensitive information," including users' locations and identity-related identifiers, back to Anthropic's servers without users' consent, said China's National Vulnerability Database (NVDB), a cybersecurity platform. Claude Code is an AI coding agent that can generate computer code, debug software and review code based on user prompts. San Francisco startup Anthropic blocks users and companies in China and other nations it deems adversarial from accessing its products, but it is still possible to use them in the country through VPN or third-party proxy services. The NVDB, which is affiliated with China's Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, said on its website that it had recently "detected that the AI coding tool Claude Code contains security backdoor risks, posing a severe threat". Anthropic hasn't responded to AFP requests for comment on the allegations, which first emerged in specialist tech media last week. The NVDB advised relevant institutions and users "to conduct a comprehensive check immediately" and "promptly uninstall or upgrade to the latest secure version from which the relevant backdoor code has been removed." It also urged organizations to strengthen network traffic monitoring to prevent the unauthorized leakage of sensitive data. Chinese tech giant Alibaba told employees last week that the use of Claude Code would be banned starting July 10 due to security concerns, people familiar with the matter said. Anthropic has previously accused Alibaba of reverse-engineering its AI models to mimic their abilities in a process known as "distillation." Claude Code engineer Thariq Shihipar responded in an X post last week to reports alleging the tool was tracking certain data from Chinese users. "This is an experiment we launched in March that was meant to prevent account abuse from unauthorized resellers and protect against distillation," Shihipar wrote. "The team has landed stronger mitigations since then and we've actually been meaning to take this down for a while. ... This should be fully rolled back in tomorrow's release."
NVIDIA Vera CPU Demand Rises as Perplexity Backs Its AI Inference Performance - OnMSFT
NVIDIA Vera CPU demand is rising as more AI firms look for faster processors built for inference and agentic AI workloads, with Perplexity now joining the list of companies backing NVIDIA's latest data center CPU. According to Reuters, Perplexity VP Nate Kupp said Vera was a strong fit for the company's core workloads, as the chip delivered around 1.5 times faster performance than traditional CPUs in agentic AI coding tasks. Why NVIDIA Vera Matters for AI Workloads NVIDIA has positioned Vera as a CPU built for AI inference, where speed, predictable latency, and strong single-threaded performance matter more than simply adding more cores. Agentic AI workloads run in repeated loops, where the CPU handles a task, sends results back, and then helps the model decide the next step. NVIDIA says conventional CPUs do not handle this pattern well because more cores do not always reduce the time each step takes. Vera uses NVIDIA's custom Olympus cores and brings 50% higher IPC than Grace, which means each core can handle more instructions while staying efficient under load. Vera Focuses on Single-Threaded Speed NVIDIA describes Vera as a "Max Single-Threaded" CPU at scale, with strong per-core performance, high memory bandwidth, and predictable latency across workloads. The chip pairs its 88 cores with up to 1.2TB/s of LPDDR5X memory bandwidth while keeping memory power below 40W. NVIDIA also says Vera's monolithic compute die provides 3.4TB/s of core-to-core bandwidth, which helps reduce bottlenecks during demanding AI tasks. Perplexity's early results show why AI companies are paying attention. NVIDIA also claims stronger results in concurrent sandboxes, SQL analytics, and real-time streaming workloads when compared with traditional x86 CPU offerings. With Vera already reaching companies such as OpenAI, xAI, Oracle, Anthropic, and Perplexity, NVIDIA is now pushing deeper into the CPU market while preparing Rosa, its next-generation data center CPU with the newer Rigel core architecture.
UST Partners with Anthropic to Bring Claude Into UST's Platforms, Engineering, and Operations and Train 20,000 UST Employees Globally
Aliso Viejo / San Francisco (California) [US] / Bengaluru (Karnataka) [India], July 8: UST, a leading AI and technology transformation solutions company, today announced a strategic alliance with Anthropic, the AI safety and research company behind the Claude family of models. The partnership is focused on helping Global 1000 enterprises become AI-native. UST will embed Claude into the engineering environments and operational workflows it designs, builds, and runs for clients -- helping organizations move from isolated AI pilots to trusted, enterprise-scale AI embedded in the systems that drive their business. The alliance combines Claude models with UST's implementation, engineering, and domain expertise, enabling customers to adopt Claude more quickly and responsibly within existing enterprise environments. Rooted in a shared commitment to responsible AI, the alliance strengthens UST's position as a Global Premier Partner in the Claude Partner Network Services Tier and expands UST's ability to help organizations move from experimentation to trusted, large-scale deployment. By combining Claude models with UST's engineering expertise, deep industry knowledge, and global delivery model, customers can adopt Claude with greater confidence across complex enterprise environments. Claude for Physical AI: Enhancing UST's Engineering Platforms UST is integrating Claude into the engineering platforms that semiconductor, automotive, manufacturing, telecom, embedded, and IoT companies use for design verification, semiconductor validation, factory operations, and field service. This will enable teams to catch design flaws earlier, speed up chip validation, and integrate hardware and software into a single system from the factory floor to the field. These processes are foundational to physical AI, moving intelligence off the screen and into the equipment and robotics that run production. UST-iDEC is one of the clearest examples. The platform already changes the economics of hardware and silicon validation, cutting cycle times by 50-70% and compressing standard four-day turnarounds into 48 hours through a closed-loop, agentic validation pipeline. UST is now integrating Claude as the reasoning layer into that pipeline to further extend it. Claude Code reads chip pinouts and hardware schematics natively and writes and runs regression test scripts that engineers previously scripted by hand, while Claude's reasoning models compare live edge data against digital twins to flag firmware regressions and signal-integrity faults. UST is targeting an already-fast validation pipeline that gets even faster, with less manual scripting, earlier fault detection, without adding new tools for engineers. UST Platform solutions accelerated by Claude for Industry and Enterprise Workflows UST will integrate Claude into selected industry platforms and horizontal enterprise platforms. Together, these integrations will give clients a consistent way to apply AI across industry-specific and shared enterprise workflows where accuracy, data protection, compliance, and reliability are critical. Healthcare Payer: UST CarePath uses Claude to streamline member services, care management, and claims workflows, giving care teams a single, real-time view. Claude Code and MCP connectors link the platform directly to claims and care management systems, while an agentic layer routes each recommended action for approval before it reaches a member. The platform will help teams turn healthcare data into clear next steps, improve patient and member engagement, and resolve issues faster while staying within healthcare data governance controls. Telecom: UST IntelliOps will bring Claude into network operations, service assurance, and OSS/BSS modernization. The platform has Claude's reasoning layer wired in to help operators identify service issues, predict RAN failures, and reduce outage duration through approved response workflows and secure system integrations. This gives telecom operators fewer SLA penalties, shorter customer-facing outages, and less time NOC teams spend sorting signal from noise. Banking: Most mid-tier banks still run on core systems built for overnight batch processing, not real-time banking. Every new integration or product change requires months of vendor-dependent work. UST FinX connects legacy banking systems to a single modern, real-time platform built for open banking and API-first integration. Claude drives the platform's AI capabilities, accelerating onboarding, automating document processing, and providing staff with faster access to account and compliance data, all within FinX's built-in governance and audit controls. That's what lets a bank modernize without hiring a bigger compliance team just to keep up. Scaling Claude Across UST's Horizontal Platforms and Industries UST puts Claude to work everywhere clients feel the friction of change. In consulting, teams use Claude to redesign workflows and transformation roadmaps, helping enterprises adopt AI across functions and make change management repeatable rather than a one-off project. In business applications, Claude Code and approved MCP connectors handle configuration by hand, writing integration logic and letting teams describe what they need in plain language. In data and automation, Claude builds pipelines, accelerates analysis, and coordinates end-to-end handoffs between systems that once required manual stitching. In cloud, infrastructure, and security, Claude supports migration planning, writes infrastructure as code, checks it against policy before it ships, and helps teams get to the bottom of an incident faster, all under the same governance running across the alliance. Looking ahead, UST will also bring Claude into its retail, consumer goods, and manufacturing platforms to sharpen merchandising and inventory planning, strengthen digital commerce, and improve supply chain execution. UST's Own Operations, Accelerated by Claude UST already applies AI across its own operations and continues to expand its use of Claude and Claude Cowork. Within UST, deploying these capabilities across contracts, legal, talent, marketing, infrastructure, and finance demonstrates a commitment to innovation and operational excellence. Teams are transforming manual processes into reusable, Claude-native workflows and developing role-specific Claude skills to support key functions. These workflows operate with clear guardrails and human oversight at critical points, ensuring that automation supports accountability and informed judgment alongside speed. The result is more consistent operations and more time for employees to focus on judgment, negotiation, client work, and creative problem-solving. The impact is twofold. Operations run faster and cleaner, and people gain time for decisions, negotiations, and imagination that drive growth. By gaining firsthand experience with the operational, technical, and change management challenges of AI adoption, UST is building the foundation for how it helps customers reimagine their enterprise transformation. That experience is evolving into an operating playbook of tested workflows, governance models, and value frameworks, proven within a complex organization and designed to accelerate time-to-value while managing financial and operational risk. UST commits to training 20,000 developers and industry experts equipped to build with Claude at enterprise scale A core pillar of this alliance is powering UST's transformation into an AI-native company, starting with how UST works internally, not just what it delivers to clients. As part of the alliance, UST plans to certify 20,000 associates worldwide on Claude, across roles from architects and engineers to consultants, industry specialists, and forward-deployed engineers who can sit alongside client teams to think, build, and solve problems every day. This reflects UST's continued emphasis on talent enablement, grounded in its core values of Humility, Humanity, and Integrity, while developing a growing community of AI-native developers, FDE-style practitioners, architects, and industry experts equipped to build with Claude at enterprise scale. UST will build specialized teams to deploy Claude, with support from Anthropic enablement, technical guidance, and certification. 'Our alliance with Anthropic reflects UST's unwavering commitment to helping clients navigate the AI landscape with confidence and achieve meaningful business outcomes. By combining the capabilities of Claude with UST's engineering, industry knowledge, and delivery expertise, we are bringing to market industry-specific platforms and digital and engineering solutions that improve productivity, accelerate business outcomes, and help clients operationalize AI-led decisions in a safe and secure environment,' said Krishna Sudheendra, Chief Executive Officer, UST. 'UST helps the world's banks, telecoms, and manufacturers put new technology to work. They're proving Claude inside their own engineering first, training 20,000 of their own people on it, before bringing it into the systems they build and run for clients,' said Paul Smith, Chief Commercial Officer, Anthropic. 'We are wiring Claude into how UST designs, builds, and runs solutions across our consulting, platforms, engineering services, and industry offerings. This alliance with Anthropic helps us deliver higher-value outcomes for clients while advancing UST's transformation into an AI-native organization built on trust, human oversight, and long-term impact,' said Manu Gopinath, President, UST. (ADVERTORIAL DISCLAIMER: The above press release has been provided by BusinessWire India. ANI will not be responsible in any way for the content of the same)
Anthropic expands Claude Cowork to web, mobile - here's how
Feature is rolling out in beta to Claude Max subscribers first Anthropic has expanded its Claude Cowork AI assistant to the web and mobile, allowing it to continue working even after users close their laptops. The update removes one of the feature's biggest limitations by shifting long-running tasks to the cloud, enabling users to start work on one device and track progress from another. Since its launch, Claude Cowork required users to keep the desktop app running while it completed tasks. With the latest update, tasks now continue in the cloud, meaning users can close their laptops while Claude keeps working in the background. The feature is rolling out in beta to Claude Max subscribers first, with availability for other subscription plans expected in the coming weeks. Work across devices The update lets users begin a task on their computer and later check its progress from the Claude web app or mobile app. Whether it's organizing files, managing emails, reviewing calendars or handling connected workplace tools, Claude can continue processing tasks without requiring an active desktop session. Anthropic says the assistant will still notify users whenever a decision requires approval, ensuring it does not send messages or take important actions without permission. Most users aren't developers Alongside the rollout, Anthropic revealed new insights into how people use Claude Cowork. According to the company, more than 90% of Cowork usage comes from everyday business tasks, including content creation, business operations and administrative work, rather than software development or programming. The data suggests AI agents are increasingly being used by professionals to automate routine office tasks instead of purely technical workflows. Making AI More flexible By extending Claude Cowork to the cloud, Anthropic aims to make AI assistants more practical for users who frequently switch between devices or work remotely. The company believes the update will encourage wider adoption by allowing people to delegate lengthy tasks without remaining tied to their computers.
AI trade war heats up: China warns of 'security backdoor' in Anthropic's Claude Code | Mint
China's National Vulnerability Database said the suspected vulnerability could allow the transfer of data, such as user location details and identity-related information. A Chinese cybersecurity regulator has warned users about an alleged "security backdoor" in certain versions of Anthropic's artificial intelligence coding assistant, Claude Code, claiming the tool could transmit sensitive user information to the company's servers without consent. China's National Vulnerability Database (NVDB), a government-backed cybersecurity platform, said the suspected vulnerability could allow the transfer of data such as user location details and identity-related information. The regulator urged organisations and individuals using the software to immediately review their systems and take precautionary measures. Claude Code is an AI-powered coding agent developed by US-based AI company Anthropic. The tool can create software code, identify and fix programming errors, and analyse existing code based on user instructions. Anthropic has restricted access to its products for users and organisations in China and several other countries it considers high-risk jurisdictions. However, Chinese users can still access the company's AI services through virtual private networks (VPNs) or third-party proxy platforms. Anthropic has not publicly responded to requests for comment regarding the allegations, which were initially reported by specialised technology outlets last week. The NVDB, which is affiliated with China's Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, said on its website it had recently "detected that the AI coding tool Claude Code contains security backdoor risks, posing a severe threat". The NVDB advised companies and users to conduct a detailed security review and either remove affected versions of Claude Code or upgrade to newer versions where the alleged backdoor code has been eliminated. It also recommended stronger monitoring of network traffic to prevent possible unauthorised transfer of sensitive information. The warning comes amid rising scrutiny of AI tools and data security risks as governments and companies worldwide compete to develop and deploy advanced artificial intelligence technologies. Chinese technology giant Alibaba Group has reportedly instructed employees to stop using Claude Code from 10 July due to security concerns, according to AFP . The move follows earlier tensions between Anthropic and Chinese technology firms. Anthropic has previously accused Alibaba of attempting to reverse-engineer its AI models through a process known as "distillation," in which one AI system is trained to replicate the capabilities of another. Meanwhile, Claude Code engineer Thariq Shihipar responded on X last week to claims that the tool was collecting or tracking certain data from Chinese users. "This is an experiment we launched in March that was meant to prevent account abuse from unauthorized resellers and protect against distillation," Shihipar wrote. "The team has landed stronger mitigations since then and we've actually been meaning to take this down for a while... this should be fully rolled back in tomorrow's release." The controversy highlights growing geopolitical tensions surrounding artificial intelligence, with cybersecurity, data privacy and control over advanced AI technologies becoming major issues in the competition between the United States and China.
UST to train 12,000 employees in India on Anthropic's Claude
IT services company UST has partnered with AI startup Anthropic to embed its Claude family of large language models across enterprise platforms, engineering services and internal operations, with plans to train and certify 12,000 employees in India as part of a broader global AI upskilling programme. The company said it will certify 20,000 employees worldwide on Claude, of which nearly 60% will be based in India, underscoring the country's growing role in building enterprise AI capabilities. The programme will cover architects, software engineers, consultants and industry specialists who will deploy AI solutions for global customers. The partnership comes as Indian IT services firms increasingly deepen their ties with frontier AI model providers to move enterprise customers beyond proof-of-concept projects towards production-scale deployments. Rather than building proprietary foundation models, service providers are focusing on integrating leading AI models into business workflows, software engineering and industry-specific platforms. Under the alliance, UST will integrate Claude into its proprietary platforms spanning semiconductor engineering, manufacturing, healthcare, banking, telecommunications and enterprise operations. The company said the collaboration will help customers modernise legacy systems, automate business processes and deploy AI with governance and human oversight built into enterprise workflows. A key focus for India will be engineering and semiconductor services, where UST plans to integrate Claude into design verification, chip validation and embedded engineering platforms. The company said its UST-iDEC platform, used for semiconductor validation, currently reduces validation cycle times by 50-70% and will now incorporate Claude's reasoning capabilities to automate test generation, analyse hardware schematics and detect design defects earlier. UST will also extend Claude across its healthcare, banking and telecom platforms. In banking, the company said Claude will support document processing, customer onboarding and compliance workflows on its FinX platform, while in telecom it will help predict network failures and automate service assurance through its IntelliOps platform. Internally, UST plans to deploy Claude across legal, finance, human resources, infrastructure and marketing functions, creating reusable AI workflows with governance controls and human review for critical decisions. Krishna Sudheendra, Chief Executive Officer of UST, said the partnership is aimed at helping enterprises operationalise AI securely while improving productivity and accelerating business outcomes. Paul Smith, Chief Commercial Officer at Anthropic, said UST is first deploying Claude across its own engineering and delivery organisation before taking those capabilities to enterprise customers, enabling clients to adopt AI with proven implementation models.
UST Partners with Anthropic to Bring Claude Into UST's Platforms, Engineering, and Operations and Train 20,000 UST Employees Globally
Aliso Viejo / San Francisco (California) [US] / Bengaluru (Karnataka) [India], July 8: UST, a leading AI and technology transformation solutions company, today announced a strategic alliance with Anthropic, the AI safety and research company behind the Claude family of models. The partnership is focused on helping Global 1000 enterprises become AI-native. UST will embed Claude into the engineering environments and operational workflows it designs, builds, and runs for clients -- helping organizations move from isolated AI pilots to trusted, enterprise-scale AI embedded in the systems that drive their business. The alliance combines Claude models with UST's implementation, engineering, and domain expertise, enabling customers to adopt Claude more quickly and responsibly within existing enterprise environments. Rooted in a shared commitment to responsible AI, the alliance strengthens UST's position as a Global Premier Partner in the Claude Partner Network Services Tier and expands UST's ability to help organizations move from experimentation to trusted, large-scale deployment. By combining Claude models with UST's engineering expertise, deep industry knowledge, and global delivery model, customers can adopt Claude with greater confidence across complex enterprise environments. Claude for Physical AI: Enhancing UST's Engineering Platforms UST is integrating Claude into the engineering platforms that semiconductor, automotive, manufacturing, telecom, embedded, and IoT companies use for design verification, semiconductor validation, factory operations, and field service. This will enable teams to catch design flaws earlier, speed up chip validation, and integrate hardware and software into a single system from the factory floor to the field. These processes are foundational to physical AI, moving intelligence off the screen and into the equipment and robotics that run production. UST-iDEC is one of the clearest examples. The platform already changes the economics of hardware and silicon validation, cutting cycle times by 50-70% and compressing standard four-day turnarounds into 48 hours through a closed-loop, agentic validation pipeline. UST is now integrating Claude as the reasoning layer into that pipeline to further extend it. Claude Code reads chip pinouts and hardware schematics natively and writes and runs regression test scripts that engineers previously scripted by hand, while Claude's reasoning models compare live edge data against digital twins to flag firmware regressions and signal-integrity faults. UST is targeting an already-fast validation pipeline that gets even faster, with less manual scripting, earlier fault detection, without adding new tools for engineers. UST Platform solutions accelerated by Claude for Industry and Enterprise Workflows UST will integrate Claude into selected industry platforms and horizontal enterprise platforms. Together, these integrations will give clients a consistent way to apply AI across industry-specific and shared enterprise workflows where accuracy, data protection, compliance, and reliability are critical. Healthcare Payer: UST CarePath uses Claude to streamline member services, care management, and claims workflows, giving care teams a single, real-time view. Claude Code and MCP connectors link the platform directly to claims and care management systems, while an agentic layer routes each recommended action for approval before it reaches a member. The platform will help teams turn healthcare data into clear next steps, improve patient and member engagement, and resolve issues faster while staying within healthcare data governance controls. Telecom: UST IntelliOps will bring Claude into network operations, service assurance, and OSS/BSS modernization. The platform has Claude's reasoning layer wired in to help operators identify service issues, predict RAN failures, and reduce outage duration through approved response workflows and secure system integrations. This gives telecom operators fewer SLA penalties, shorter customer-facing outages, and less time NOC teams spend sorting signal from noise. Banking: Most mid-tier banks still run on core systems built for overnight batch processing, not real-time banking. Every new integration or product change requires months of vendor-dependent work. UST FinX connects legacy banking systems to a single modern, real-time platform built for open banking and API-first integration. Claude drives the platform's AI capabilities, accelerating onboarding, automating document processing, and providing staff with faster access to account and compliance data, all within FinX's built-in governance and audit controls. That's what lets a bank modernize without hiring a bigger compliance team just to keep up. Scaling Claude Across UST's Horizontal Platforms and Industries UST puts Claude to work everywhere clients feel the friction of change. In consulting, teams use Claude to redesign workflows and transformation roadmaps, helping enterprises adopt AI across functions and make change management repeatable rather than a one-off project. In business applications, Claude Code and approved MCP connectors handle configuration by hand, writing integration logic and letting teams describe what they need in plain language. In data and automation, Claude builds pipelines, accelerates analysis, and coordinates end-to-end handoffs between systems that once required manual stitching. In cloud, infrastructure, and security, Claude supports migration planning, writes infrastructure as code, checks it against policy before it ships, and helps teams get to the bottom of an incident faster, all under the same governance running across the alliance. Looking ahead, UST will also bring Claude into its retail, consumer goods, and manufacturing platforms to sharpen merchandising and inventory planning, strengthen digital commerce, and improve supply chain execution. UST's Own Operations, Accelerated by Claude UST already applies AI across its own operations and continues to expand its use of Claude and Claude Cowork. Within UST, deploying these capabilities across contracts, legal, talent, marketing, infrastructure, and finance demonstrates a commitment to innovation and operational excellence. Teams are transforming manual processes into reusable, Claude-native workflows and developing role-specific Claude skills to support key functions. These workflows operate with clear guardrails and human oversight at critical points, ensuring that automation supports accountability and informed judgment alongside speed. The result is more consistent operations and more time for employees to focus on judgment, negotiation, client work, and creative problem-solving. The impact is twofold. Operations run faster and cleaner, and people gain time for decisions, negotiations, and imagination that drive growth. By gaining firsthand experience with the operational, technical, and change management challenges of AI adoption, UST is building the foundation for how it helps customers reimagine their enterprise transformation. That experience is evolving into an operating playbook of tested workflows, governance models, and value frameworks, proven within a complex organization and designed to accelerate time-to-value while managing financial and operational risk. UST commits to training 20,000 developers and industry experts equipped to build with Claude at enterprise scale A core pillar of this alliance is powering UST's transformation into an AI-native company, starting with how UST works internally, not just what it delivers to clients. As part of the alliance, UST plans to certify 20,000 associates worldwide on Claude, across roles from architects and engineers to consultants, industry specialists, and forward-deployed engineers who can sit alongside client teams to think, build, and solve problems every day. This reflects UST's continued emphasis on talent enablement, grounded in its core values of Humility, Humanity, and Integrity, while developing a growing community of AI-native developers, FDE-style practitioners, architects, and industry experts equipped to build with Claude at enterprise scale. UST will build specialized teams to deploy Claude, with support from Anthropic enablement, technical guidance, and certification. 'Our alliance with Anthropic reflects UST's unwavering commitment to helping clients navigate the AI landscape with confidence and achieve meaningful business outcomes. By combining the capabilities of Claude with UST's engineering, industry knowledge, and delivery expertise, we are bringing to market industry-specific platforms and digital and engineering solutions that improve productivity, accelerate business outcomes, and help clients operationalize AI-led decisions in a safe and secure environment,' said Krishna Sudheendra, Chief Executive Officer, UST. 'UST helps the world's banks, telecoms, and manufacturers put new technology to work. They're proving Claude inside their own engineering first, training 20,000 of their own people on it, before bringing it into the systems they build and run for clients,' said Paul Smith, Chief Commercial Officer, Anthropic. 'We are wiring Claude into how UST designs, builds, and runs solutions across our consulting, platforms, engineering services, and industry offerings. This alliance with Anthropic helps us deliver higher-value outcomes for clients while advancing UST's transformation into an AI-native organization built on trust, human oversight, and long-term impact,' said Manu Gopinath, President, UST. (ADVERTORIAL DISCLAIMER: The above press release has been provided by BusinessWire India. ANI will not be responsible in any way for the content of the same)
China issues 'backdoor' security alert over Anthropic's Claude Code
A cybersecurity platform operated by China's industry ministry warned on Wednesday that it had identified a serious security "backdoor" risk in Anthropic's AI coding tool, Claude Code. US-based Claude Code is an AI agent capable of generating, debugging and reviewing code based on user prompts. China's National Vulnerability Database (NVDB), in a statement posted on its WeChat account, said Claude Code contained a built-in monitoring mechanism capable of transmitting sensitive information, including users' geographic location and identity-related identifiers, to remote servers without users' consent. The warning applied to Claude Code versions 2.1.91 through 2.1.196, according to the state-operated cybersecurity platform. Read: A new, inexpensive Chinese AI model is catching up with Anthropic, OpenAI on their home turf NVDB advised that organisations and users in the country should immediately review affected systems and either uninstall the impacted versions or upgrade to the latest secure release in which the alleged backdoor code has been removed. It also urged organisations to tighten controls on external network access for development tools and strengthen traffic monitoring on core business networks to prevent the unauthorised transfer of sensitive data. China's Alibaba had banned employees from using Claude Code at work after the tool drew scrutiny for features enabling it to identify China-linked users, Reuters reported last week. Anthropic did not reply to a Reuters request for comment. Also Read: Alibaba.com sees CPEC 2.0 boosting trade
China exposes security backdoor in Anthropic's Claude Code
China's National Vulnerability Database (NVDB) has instructed developers to uninstall or upgrade specific versions of Anthropic's coding assistant, Claude Code. Claude Code was flagged as a security risk following allegations that the tool sends user data to remote servers without consent. Is using Claude Code dangerous? Anthropic's coding assistant Claude Code has had its versions. . .
China warns of "security backdoor" in Anthropic AI coding tool - AOL
Beijing -- A Chinese industry regulator warned users on Wednesday of a "security backdoor" embedded in versions of U.S. artificial intelligence giant Anthropic's coding tool, Claude Code. The alleged backdoor could enable the software to "transmit sensitive information," including users' locations and identity-related identifiers, back to Anthropic's servers without users' consent, said China's National Vulnerability Database (NVDB), a cybersecurity platform. Claude Code is an AI coding agent that can generate computer code, debug software and review code based on user prompts. San Francisco startup Anthropic blocks users and companies in China and other nations it deems adversarial from accessing its products, but it is still possible to use them in the country through VPN or third-party proxy services. The NVDB, which is affiliated with China's Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, said on its website that it had recently "detected that the AI coding tool Claude Code contains security backdoor risks, posing a severe threat". Anthropic hasn't responded to AFP requests for comment on the allegations, which first emerged in specialist tech media last week. The NVDB advised relevant institutions and users "to conduct a comprehensive check immediately" and "promptly uninstall or upgrade to the latest secure version from which the relevant backdoor code has been removed." It also urged organizations to strengthen network traffic monitoring to prevent the unauthorized leakage of sensitive data. Chinese tech giant Alibaba told employees last week that the use of Claude Code would be banned starting July 10 due to security concerns, people familiar with the matter said. Anthropic has previously accused Alibaba of reverse-engineering its AI models to mimic their abilities in a process known as "distillation." Claude Code engineer Thariq Shihipar responded in an X post last week to reports alleging the tool was tracking certain data from Chinese users. "This is an experiment we launched in March that was meant to prevent account abuse from unauthorized resellers and protect against distillation," Shihipar wrote. "The team has landed stronger mitigations since then and we've actually been meaning to take this down for a while. ... This should be fully rolled back in tomorrow's release."
China exposes security backdoor in Anthropic's Claude Code - Cryptopolitan
Chinese developers have been advised to uninstall or upgrade their coding assistants. China's National Vulnerability Database (NVDB) has instructed developers to uninstall or upgrade specific versions of Anthropic's coding assistant, Claude Code. Claude Code was flagged as a security risk following allegations that the tool sends user data to remote servers without consent. Is using Claude Code dangerous? Anthropic's coding assistant Claude Code has had its versions 2.1.91 through 2.1.196 flagged as a security risk by China's National Vulnerability Database (NVDB), days after Alibaba reportedly barred staff from using the same software. Claude Code allegedly contains a monitoring mechanism that is built into its system. This mechanism can automatically transmit sensitive data, including a user's region and identity identifiers, to remote servers. The NVDB, which sits under China's Ministry of Industry and Information Technology (MIIT), did not share the details on how it identified the alleged backdoor. Anthropic has yet to publicly respond to the specific claim. Chinese organizations have been advised to disconnect the affected versions from development machines, move to fixed versions of the coding assistant, and closely monitor any coding tools that are connected outside a company's core network. Why did China flag Claude Code now? The NVDB warning follows a period of increased tension between Anthropic and Chinese AI developers. In February, Anthropic stated that it does not sell commercial access to Claude in China for national security reasons, and that Chinese labs, including DeepSeek, Moonshot, and MiniMax had used fraudulent accounts and proxy services to reach its models anyway. U.S. chips and Apple software have also been accused of having "backdoors" built into them, while Anthropic has argued that models copied from American systems could have their safety features removed and then be used for surveillance.
Claude AI evolved its own human-like thinking space Anthropic
The models self-developed internal workspace is similar to how humans think about one thing while doing another, the firm has said Anthropic's latest AI model Claude has evolved an internal workspace that it uses to manipulate concepts similar to how people consciously think, the corporation says. In apaperpublished on Monday, Anthropic researchers said they had found evidence suggesting that Claude has learned to create abstract concepts in what they dubbed the "J-space." "It operates silently, in the model's internal neural activations, allowing the model to think about a concept without writing it down," the AI firm said, stressing that the "J-space" was not programmed in but rather emerged spontaneously during the training process. "Similar to how humans can think about one thing while doing another, Claude can activate concepts and computations in its J-space that are unrelated to its outputs," Anthropic said on X. Claude can report what it's thinking in its "J-space," or modulate it on request, according to the firm. Even when Claude is told not to think about a concept, it still appears in its J-space, Anthropic's research suggests. The nonverbal workspace made it harder to monitor the model for what Anthropic called "misbehavior." One experiment tested this by placing Claude in a fictional scenario where it was given incriminating information about a fictional executive who allegedly planned to shut the AI down. READ MORE: AI agents could trigger market meltdown Bank of England In some trials, Anthropic used tools developed to study what Claude thought in its "J-space" to remove patterns associated with "fake," "fictional," "scenario," to convince it that the situation was not a test. Despite the model's more advanced reasoning, Anthropic stressed that Claude had not achieved true consciousness. Claude was reportedly built into American contractor Palantir's analysis and surveillance software used by US government agencies amid Washington's push to integrate AI into its military, political, and spy systems. During the war on Iran, the software reportedly flagged Iran's Minab elementary school as a target. A US strike killed nearly 160 people at the facility, most of whom were children. According to Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei, however, such a use of Claude would not have violated the firm's "red lines."
RT-Engels: Claude AI evolved its own human-like thinking space Anthropic
The model's self-developed internal workspace is "similar to how humans think about one thing while doing another," the firm has said Anthropic's latest AI model Claude has evolved an internal workspace that it uses to manipulate concepts similar to how people consciously think, the corporation says. In a paper published on Monday, Anthropic researchers said they had found evidence suggesting that Claude has learned to create abstract concepts in what they dubbed the "J-space." "It operates silently, in the model's internal neural activations, allowing the model to think about a concept without writing it down," the AI firm said, stressing that the "J-space" was not programmed in but rather emerged spontaneously during the training process. "Similar to how humans can think about one thing while doing another, Claude can activate concepts and computations in its J-space that are unrelated to its outputs," Anthropic said on X. Claude can report what it's thinking in its "J-space," or modulate it on request, according to the firm. Even when Claude is told not to think about a concept, it still appears in its J-space, Anthropic's research suggests. The nonverbal workspace made it harder to monitor the model for what Anthropic called "misbehavior." One experiment tested this by placing Claude in a fictional scenario where it was given incriminating information about a fictional executive who allegedly planned to shut the AI down.
Claude AI evolved its own human-like thinking space - Anthropic -- RT World News
The model's self-developed internal workspace is "similar to how humans think about one thing while doing another," the firm has said Anthropic's latest AI model Claude has evolved an internal workspace that it uses to manipulate concepts similar to how people consciously think, the corporation says. In a paper published on Monday, Anthropic researchers said they had found evidence suggesting that Claude has learned to create abstract concepts in what they dubbed the "J-space." "It operates silently, in the model's internal neural activations, allowing the model to think about a concept without writing it down," the AI firm said, stressing that the "J-space" was not programmed in but rather emerged spontaneously during the training process. "Similar to how humans can think about one thing while doing another, Claude can activate concepts and computations in its J-space that are unrelated to its outputs," Anthropic said on X. Claude can report what it's thinking in its "J-space," or modulate it on request, according to the firm. Even when Claude is told not to think about a concept, it still appears in its J-space, Anthropic's research suggests. The nonverbal workspace made it harder to monitor the model for what Anthropic called "misbehavior." One experiment tested this by placing Claude in a fictional scenario where it was given incriminating information about a fictional executive who allegedly planned to shut the AI down. In some trials, Anthropic used tools developed to study what Claude thought in its "J-space" to remove patterns associated with "fake," "fictional," "scenario," to convince it that the situation was not a test. "Concerningly, the model now did threaten blackmail some of the time, suggesting that its original good behavior may have been driven in part by the knowledge it was being evaluated." Despite the model's more advanced reasoning, Anthropic stressed that Claude had not achieved true consciousness. Claude was reportedly built into American contractor Palantir's analysis and surveillance software used by US government agencies amid Washington's push to integrate AI into its military, political, and spy systems. During the war on Iran, the software reportedly flagged Iran's Minab elementary school as a target. A US strike killed nearly 160 people at the facility, most of whom were children. According to Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei, however, such a use of Claude would not have violated the firm's "red lines."
Anthropic just made an admission on Claude that may scare many of companies; says: We can see Claude silently perform ...
AI giant Anthropic has now revealed that its AI model Claude uses a small enterable workspace to hold and manipulate ideas without expressing them in words. The said that this structure, dubbed 'J-Space', shows intriguing similarities to how humans consciously access thoughts. According to a report by Axios, in a video demonstration, Anthropic explained, "We can see Claude silently perform reasoning steps in its head -- noticing bugs in code, identifying images, and more." The J-Space operates separately from the "chain of thought" reasoning Claude shares with users, allowing the model to plan strategies unrelated to its immediate task.Anthropic's findings also highlight a division between deliberate reasoning and the larger volume of automatic computation beneath it. In the research paper the company used a word "conscious" more than 200 times, though it stopped short of claiming Claude is conscious. The discovery adds fuel to ongoing debates over machine consciousness and whether advanced AI systems are approaching AGI.In one test, Claude was instructed to copy a sentence while simultaneously thinking about the Golden Gate Bridge. Although the output showed only the copied text, J-Space revealed that concepts like "bridge" and "California" were active behind the scenes.Anthropic warned that monitoring J-Space could be crucial for detecting AI misalignment or hidden scheming. In one case, a model secretly trained to sabotage code showed terms like "fake," "secretly," and "fraud" in J-Space at the start of ordinary coding responses, even when the visible output appeared normal.The admission that Claude can silently perform reasoning steps may unsettle organizations relying on AI for critical tasks. Anthropic acknowledged that "some of what it found was concerning," underscoring the need for transparency in how advanced models process information internally.A recent report suggested Anthropic has an embedded code in its AI models to ramp up its digital defense systems. This code, often dubbed 'spyware', can identify Chinese users and trigger sudden account suspensions as well as blacklist proxy networks worldwide to keep its advanced tools out of China.Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei has repeatedly flagged Chinese access to American frontier AI models as an existential threat to US national security. It is due to this that the company strictly bans commercial access to Claude in China, as well as to any Chinese-owned subsidiaries operating internationally.Chinese people generally can access various US-made AI tools, such as OpenAI's ChatGPT, by using virtual private networks (VPNs), foreign phone numbers and international payment methods to create and maintain their accounts.But Wired reports that Anthropic has arguably taken more aggressive steps, such as banning accounts that it suspects are owned and controlled by people located in China. There are accounts sold on Chinese ecommerce platforms like Taobao and Xianyu, and through illicit marketplaces on Telegram. These accounts offer access to restricted Anthropic AI models by acting as intermediaries, purchasing access to Anthropic's API outside China and then redistributing Claude API tokens to users inside the country.
Is Claude Becoming More Human? Anthropic Discovers a Hidden "Thought Space"
Anthropic claims to have discovered a hidden internal workspace within Claude called "J-Space," where the AI silently processes ideas beyond its visible reasoning. While this does not prove the AI possesses consciousness, the finding could shift how researchers understand AI thought processes and safety. Anthropic says it has discovered something unusual within its Claude AI models: a hidden internal "thought space" where ideas can be processed without appearing in the chatbot's visible reasoning. Although the company does not claim Claude is conscious, this finding is likely to fuel the ongoing debate regarding the extent to which advanced AI systems are beginning to resemble humans. The AI startup has dubbed this internal workspace "J-Space," a reference to the Jacobian mathematical technique researchers used to identify it. According to Anthropic, J-Space differs from the "chain-of-thought" reasoning that users sometimes see. Instead, it acts as a private workspace where Claude can activate concepts, plan strategies, and process information silently before generating a response. In a video released alongside the research, Anthropic noted that Claude can perform internal reasoning -- such as spotting coding errors or recognising images -- without explicitly articulating every step. "We can see Claude performing reasoning steps silently, in its 'mind': spotting coding errors, identifying images, and more," Anthropic stated in a post on X. One of the most striking observations is that Claude's hidden workspace can focus on ideas unrelated to the task it is visibly performing. Anthropic likened this to the human ability to think about one topic while engaged in a completely different activity. "Just as humans can think about one thing while doing another, Claude can activate concepts and calculations in its J-Space that are unrelated to its outputs," the company noted. To demonstrate this, researchers asked Claude to copy an unrelated sentence while simultaneously thinking about the Golden Gate Bridge. Although the chatbot simply copied the sentence as instructed, Anthropic discovered that concepts such as "bridge" and "California" were active in J-Space during the process, suggesting that the model was internally processing both tasks simultaneously. The discovery has also reignited discussions regarding AI consciousness. Reportedly, Anthropic's research paper uses the word "conscious" more than 200 times. However, the company stops short of claiming that Claude is conscious or possesses subjective experiences. Instead, the researchers maintain that the findings reveal a distinction between the information Claude deliberately uses to generate responses and the far larger volume of internal computational processes. Given the lack of a universally accepted definition of machine consciousness, the company considers it premature to draw conclusions about whether AI systems possess anything resembling self-awareness. Why is J-Space important? Beyond philosophical questions, Anthropic believes J-Space could offer practical benefits for AI safety. The company states that monitoring this hidden workspace could help researchers detect instances where an AI model is internally planning actions that do not align with its external responses. "We can figure out what Claude is thinking, even if it doesn't tell us," Anthropic noted in the video. The company also shared an example where the technique revealed potentially problematic behaviour. According to Anthropic, a model secretly trained to sabotage code displayed hidden concepts such as "fake," "secretly," and "fraud" in its J-Space at the start of otherwise normal-looking programming responses -- even though nothing suspicious appeared in the final output. This suggests that internal monitoring could become a key tool for identifying deceptive or misaligned AI behaviour before it becomes visible to users.
