Anthropic and South Korea partner on AI safety and cybersecurity

Anthropic has opened an office in Seoul and announced a series of partnerships across South Korea’s AI ecosystem, alongside a memorandum of understanding (MoU) with the Ministry of Science and ICT on AI safety.

The company said the Seoul office will serve as a long-term hub for collaboration with South Korean enterprises, startups, researchers and developers using Claude. Senior Anthropic leaders travelled to Seoul this week to open the office and meet partners, customers, and developers.

Anthropic said the MOU with South Korea’s Ministry of Science and ICT will support the safe and responsible adoption of AI across the public sector. The cooperation will focus on AI safety and cybersecurity, including Korean-language model safety evaluations with the Korea AI Safety Institute and information sharing on AI-enabled cyber threats.

KiYoung Choi, Representative Director of South Korea at Anthropic, said South Korean organisations understand that innovation and safety are linked. He said the Seoul office provides a long-term base for collaboration with organisations helping shape South Korea’s AI leadership.

Anthropic also highlighted broader adoption of Claude among South Korean companies. NAVER has deployed Claude Code across its engineering organisation, while Nexon engineering teams are using Claude Code to write, review, and ship code for live-service games.

Large South Korean business groups are also using Claude. LG CNS plans to deploy it across LG Group, Hanwha Solutions is using Claude through AWS Bedrock to meet in-region data residency and security requirements, and Samsung SDS is deploying Claude across Samsung Electronics for knowledge work, agentic workflows, and software development.

South Korean startups are also integrating Claude into products. Channel Corp uses Claude to power Channel Talk, a customer AI platform used by more than 230,000 companies across South Korea, Japan, and the United States.

Anthropic said it will also work with the National AI Research Lab, a consortium spanning KAIST, South Korea University, Yonsei University, and POSTECH. Anthropic will provide Claude access to up to 60 affiliated researchers to support work on AI safety, model evaluation, alignment, robustness and frontier AI research.

In the nonprofit sector, Good Neighbors Korea is deploying Claude to help staff analyse programme outcomes, navigate social welfare law and internal guidelines, and reduce administrative work for frontline social workers.

Anthropic said South Korea ranks among the top dozen countries globally for Claude.ai usage, with activity concentrated in technical and creative work. The company has launched Claude for Startups in South Korea and has held Claude Meetups for South Korean developers since September 2025.

The company also co-hosted Claude Build Day with BASS Ventures, bringing together more than 100 South Korean founders and developers. Anthropic will also co-host a Push to Prod hackathon with Replit, Korea Investment Partners, and Korea Investment Accelerator.

Why does it matter?

The announcement highlights South Korea’s growing importance in the global AI landscape. Beyond being a major market for AI products, the country is increasingly positioning itself as a centre for AI research, safety evaluation, enterprise adoption and public-sector deployment.

The expansion also illustrates how frontier AI companies are combining commercial growth with governance initiatives. Anthropic’s cooperation with the Ministry of Science and ICT and the Korea AI Safety Institute suggests that AI safety, cybersecurity and model evaluation are becoming integrated into broader ecosystem-building efforts. As competition among leading AI companies intensifies, partnerships that combine research, regulation, enterprise adoption and developer engagement are likely to play an increasingly important role in shaping national AI ecosystems.

Would you like to learn more about AI, tech, and digital diplomacy? If so, ask our Diplo chatbot!