Anthropic co-founder Dario Amodei is visiting India this week, people familiar with the matter told Moneycontrol, as the artificial intelligence (AI) research company looks to establish a foothold in the world's second-largest Internet market amid intensifying competition from OpenAI, Google, Microsoft, and Meta.
What's on the agenda?
During this visit, Amodei is likely to inaugurate the company's first office in Bengaluru, widely regarded as the country's tech capital, sources told Moneycontrol.
Amodei may also meet Prime Minister Narendra Modi to discuss the company's future plans and potential collaborations.
Sources told Moneycontrol that Anthropic's head of global affairs Michael Sellitto met officials from the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY) last month to discuss India plans and explore possible areas of cooperation. Moneycontrol has reached out to Anthropic for comments and will update the copy once we hear back.
How big is India for Anthropic?
India is the largest market for Anthropic's Claude AI assistant outside the United States, accounting for 7.2 percent of global usage, thanks in part to its large population. However, per-capita usage remains low, at just 0.27 times relative to the working-age population, as per the company's recent Economic Index report.
Coding tasks account for over half of all Claude usage in India, compared with roughly a third globally.
Rival OpenAI also announced in August that it will open its first India office in New Delhi later this year, underscoring the growing importance of India in the global AI landscape. This came a few months after CEO Sam Altman's visit to India in February.
Read: From Bengaluru's PES University to Anthropic: Rahul Patil is the new CTO
Who else from Anthropic is accompanying Amodei?
Amodei will be accompanied by Anthropic executives such as Guillaume Princen (Europe, the Middle East, and Africa head), Danny Delaney (Startups), Chloe Ho (Startup sales), and Philip Hootsmans (Go-To-Market Strategy and Operations) during this India visit.
Anthropic is partnering with venture capital firms to host developer events and workshops later this week, showcasing its latest products, including Claude Sonnet 4.5, which the company says is the world’s most powerful AI model for coding and building advanced AI agents.
Executives are also expected to meet with founders and tech leaders from the Indian startup ecosystem. Infosys co-founder Nandan Nilekani is hosting a dinner with Amodei for select founders, sources told Moneycontrol.
What’s driving Anthropic’s push into India’s AI market?
These developments come as Anthropic looks to court India's booming AI developer community amid a scramble by tech giants such as Google, Microsoft, OpenAI, and Meta, all of whom are investing heavily to tap into one of the world's largest developer bases.
Srinivas Narayanan, who recently assumed the role of CTO of B2B Applications at OpenAI, told Moneycontrol in a June interview that the company is working to make its offerings more affordable for developers in India, as part of a broader push to make AI accessible globally.
Google and Meta have also released a range of AI models, tools, and other initiatives to attract developers over the past few years.
Anthropic's ambitious international plans
On September 26, Anthropic announced that it will triple its international workforce and expand its applied artificial intelligence team fivefold this year to meet the growing demand for its Claude AI models outside the United States.
The firm stated that its global customer base has grown from fewer than 1,000 business customers two years ago to over 300,000 today, representing more than 300-fold growth. Anthropic's run-rate revenue has also surged, rising from $87 million at the start of 2024 to around $1 billion at the beginning of 2025.
Anthropic is said to be currently scouting for country leads in India and other markets such as Australia and New Zealand, Korea, and Singapore.
Last month, Anthropic raised $13 billion at a $183 billion post-money valuation, led by investment firm Iconiq.
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