US artificial intelligence company Anthropic has opened an office in Seoul and announced a series of enterprise, research and public sector partnerships across South Korea, establishing a long-term base for work with Korean businesses, startups, researchers and public bodies using its Claude models and coding tools.

The expansion, reported by ITBrief Asia, includes a memorandum of understanding with South Korea's Ministry of Science and ICT covering AI safety, Korean-language model safety evaluations with the Korea AI Safety Institute, and information sharing on AI-enabled cyber threats.

According to Anthropic's Economic Index, South Korea ranks among the top dozen countries globally for Claude.ai use, with activity concentrated in technical and creative work, making it one of the company's more active international markets.

Several large Korean enterprises are already deploying Anthropic's tools at scale. NAVER has rolled out Claude Code across its engineering organisation, giving thousands of engineers access to the coding assistant. Nexon is using Claude Code for software development across live-service games, while LG CNS is deploying Claude to thousands of employees for software development and client technology work, with plans to extend that use across the wider LG Group.

Samsung SDS is deploying Claude across Samsung Electronics for knowledge work, software development and automated workflows, including Claude Cowork and Claude Code. Hanwha Solutions is making Claude available to employees globally through AWS Bedrock, meeting in-region data residency and security requirements.

KiYoung Choi, Representative Director of Korea at Anthropic, said: "Korean organisations are building with Claude to bring the benefits of AI to millions around the world. Opening an office in Seoul gives a long-term home to our work alongside the people shaping Korean leadership in AI."

Beyond enterprise, Anthropic will provide Claude access to up to 60 researchers affiliated with the National AI Research Lab consortium, spanning KAIST, Korea University, Yonsei University and POSTECH, supporting work in AI safety, model evaluation, alignment and robustness.

Discover the full scope of Anthropic's South Korea expansion and enterprise partnership strategy.