Anthropic, the AI research company behind the Claude chatbot, is reportedly setting its sights on India with plans to open its first local office in Bengaluru. According to sources cited by TechCrunch, the company’s co-founder and CEO Dario Amodei is currently in India to finalise the groundwork for this expansion and is also in talks with Reliance Industries to form a strategic partnership that could give Claude a wider reach across the country.
Amodei’s visit shows Anthropic’s growing interest in India, a market that has become increasingly central to the global AI race. People familiar with the matter told TechCrunch that the CEO will meet Reliance Industries chairman Mukesh Ambani and top executives in Mumbai this week. The discussions are expected to revolve around making Anthropic’s Claude AI assistant more accessible through Reliance’s vast digital ecosystem, including Jio.
India’s importance to Anthropic’s business is clear in the numbers. With over a billion internet users, the country is not only the second-largest online market after China but also the second-biggest contributor to traffic on Claude’s official website, after the US, according to data from Similarweb. Several Indian AI startups already rely on Anthropic’s models to build AI-driven solutions for both domestic and international clients.
Amodei’s India itinerary also includes meetings in New Delhi with senior government officials and top lawmakers. Two people aware of his travel plans said he is expected to meet Prime Minister Narendra Modi during the trip — a signal that Anthropic may be seeking a long-term foothold in India’s rapidly evolving AI ecosystem.
By the end of this week, Amodei is expected to travel to Bengaluru, where he will officially announce the opening of Anthropic’s India office on Thursday. He will be joined by Guillaume Princen, who heads Anthropic’s EMEA operations, and Daniel Delaney, who leads the company’s startup partnerships. Venture capital firms such as Accel and Lightspeed are reportedly hosting sessions with the Anthropic team to discuss how Indian startups and developers can integrate Claude into their offerings.
While OpenAI has taken a more consumer-facing approach in India, launching a low-cost ChatGPT plan earlier this year and planning an office in New Delhi, Anthropic appears to be charting a different path. Its Bengaluru office is expected to focus on supporting startups, developers, and enterprise clients looking to build applications on top of its Claude models.
Reliance Industries, meanwhile, has already been investing heavily in artificial intelligence. In August, the conglomerate launched a new unit called Reliance Intelligence to develop AI infrastructure and enterprise-grade solutions. The initiative involves collaboration with major tech companies such as Google and Meta, both long-time partners and investors in Reliance. The company had also explored a partnership with OpenAI earlier this year, though those talks did not progress after OpenAI CEO Sam Altman postponed his India visit.
Anthropic’s decision to plant roots in India comes as its app, Claude, gains steady traction among Indian users. As per analytics firm Appfigures, the Claude app saw a 48 per cent year-on-year jump in downloads in September, touching nearly 767,000 installs.
