Anthropic Opens Bengaluru Office as Global AI Labs Race to Capture India’s Booming Market
Anthropic, the San Francisco-based artificial intelligence safety company, officially opened its first India office in Bengaluru on 16 February 2026, marking a significant expansion as global AI laboratories compete to establish a footprint in the world’s second-largest internet market. India is now the second-largest market for Anthropic’s Claude chatbot after the United States, with nearly half of Indian usage focused on computer science and software development tasks.
Why Anthropic Chose India for Its Next Major Office
The Bengaluru office will serve as Anthropic’s hub for enterprise partnerships, applied AI research, and developer community engagement across India. Irina Ghose, Managing Director of Anthropic India, said the country “represents one of the world’s most promising opportunities to bring the benefits of responsible AI to vastly more people and enterprises.” The company cited India’s deep pool of technical talent, mature digital infrastructure, and a growing ecosystem of AI-first startups and technology companies as key reasons for the expansion.
Anthropic’s run-rate revenue in India has doubled since the company first announced plans for an India presence in October 2025. Key partnerships already announced include a collaboration with Infosys to deploy Claude models in the telecommunications sector, as well as a project with Air India to use Claude Code for faster internal software development.
India’s Growing Importance to Global AI Companies
Anthropic’s India entry follows a wave of investments by competing AI laboratories. At the India AI Impact Summit held in February 2026, attended by over 250,000 visitors, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman revealed that India accounts for more than 100 million weekly active ChatGPT users — second only to the United States. Altman also noted that Indian students represent the largest group of ChatGPT users globally for educational purposes.
Google DeepMind, AMD, and Nvidia have all deepened their India commitments at the same summit. AMD announced a partnership with Tata Consultancy Services (TCS) to develop rack-scale AI infrastructure, while the Indian government earmarked $1.1 billion for a state-backed venture capital fund targeting AI and advanced manufacturing startups. The launch of BharatGPT-2, India’s own sovereign AI model, underscored the country’s dual strategy of welcoming global players while building domestic capabilities.
Enterprise AI Adoption Accelerates Across Sectors
Beyond the headline partnerships, the broader Indian enterprise sector is rapidly adopting AI tools. Anthropic is working with Karya and the Collective Intelligence Project to build performance evaluations for locally relevant tasks in agriculture and law, in partnership with Indian nonprofits including Digital Green and Adalat AI. These evaluations will test Claude’s capabilities across Indic languages and domain-specific use cases.
The AI Impact Summit signalled a clear shift from prototypes to real-world deployment across Indian industry. HCL CEO Vineet Nayyar warned that Indian IT companies must focus on profitability rather than job creation as AI reshapes the services sector. Meanwhile, Bengaluru-based C2i raised $15 million in Series A funding to build power solutions for AI data centres, reflecting the infrastructure demands of the AI boom.
What This Means for India’s AI Ecosystem
The entry of Anthropic strengthens Bengaluru’s position as a global AI hub alongside Silicon Valley and London. For Indian developers, it means easier access to frontier models, localised support, and more enterprise-grade AI tools from leading companies. For the broader Indian technology sector, it signals that the race for AI dominance now runs through India as much as it does through the United States or China.
Analysts expect further announcements from global AI firms targeting India in the coming months, particularly around regional language models, healthcare AI, and government digitisation projects. The domestic sovereign AI startup landscape — led by companies like Krutrim and Sarvam AI — will also benefit from the increased competition and investment flowing into the sector.
- Anthropic Opens Bengaluru Office as Global AI Labs Race to Capture India’s Booming Market - April 3, 2026
- Mumbai-Ahmedabad Bullet Train Completes First High-Speed Trial Run as India’s Rail Revolution Accelerates in 2026 - March 30, 2026
- Indian Outbound Travel Hits Record 30 Million Trips in 2026 as Japan Thailand and Azerbaijan Emerge Top Destinations - March 29, 2026
