South Korea has initiated preliminary discussions with Anthropic, the company behind the Claude AI model, signaling Seoul’s intent to broaden its partnerships with leading global artificial intelligence firms beyond OpenAI, according to the Ministry of Science and ICT.
A representative from the ministry informed The Korea Herald that Deputy Prime Minister and Science Minister Bae Kyung-hoon met with Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei at an AI summit held in India during February. The meeting involved talks on AI technology, industry trends, and the potential for future collaborations.
“However, no decisions have been made regarding a memorandum of understanding or any specific form of cooperation,” the official stated, emphasizing that the discussions remain in the early stages.
News Agency previously reported that the discussions covered potential policy cooperation with Anthropic, collaborative efforts to apply AI to public services, and possible initiatives related to AI safety. The ministry has not confirmed any specific framework.
The contact is significant as Anthropic’s Claude is gaining recognition among governments and enterprise clients, particularly for coding and workflow-related applications. This increasing adoption has raised Anthropic’s profile beyond AI research circles and startups.
South Korea also represents a crucial market for Anthropic. The company’s January 2026 Economic Index ranked Korea seventh out of 116 countries in Claude usage intensity, a metric adjusted for the working-age population to reflect relative adoption rates.
Anthropic has been actively establishing a local presence. The US-based company began hiring in Seoul last month and is preparing to launch a Korea office focused on enterprise sales, contingent on the appointment of a country manager. A local office would provide Anthropic with a more direct foothold in a market where OpenAI and Google are also expanding their enterprise AI businesses.
To date, Seoul’s most prominent foreign AI partnership has been with OpenAI. In October 2025, the Science Ministry signed a memorandum of understanding with OpenAI focusing on AI ecosystem development, AI transformation within the public sector, and talent development. Subsequently, the government established a working-level task force to pursue follow-up projects.
Concurrently, the government is supporting the development of homegrown foundation models for sensitive sectors like defense and healthcare, where data security, regulatory oversight, and national strategic interests are paramount.
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