Anthropic Expands European Footprint with New Paris and Munich Offices

American AI developer Anthropic announced on Friday that it is opening new offices in Paris and Munich, confirming a long-planned expansion across Europe driven by rapid growth on the continent.

Anthropic, whose Claude chatbot competes directly with ChatGPT, is “doubling down on sustained EMEA (Europe, Middle East and Africa) growth,” said the company’s international director, Chris Ciauri, in a statement.

Although the company did not provide detailed figures, it said that annualised revenues in its EMEA division had increased ninefold over the past year, while the regional headcount has tripled, with further hiring planned.

The company already operates offices in Dublin, London and Zurich, and has secured contracts with major French firms, including cosmetics giant L’Oreal and pharmaceutical heavyweight Sanofi.

Paris will serve as the hub for senior Anthropic executives in the region, including Thomas Remy, a veteran of Google Cloud.

Mike Krieger, Anthropic’s chief product officer and Instagram co-founder, told AFP in June that the company aimed to support new European startups and strengthen research and development, with plans to hire 100 additional staff in the region.

Headquartered in San Francisco, Anthropic is valued at $183 billion and serves around 300,000 business clients worldwide.

Friday’s announcement comes amid a wobble in European and US high-tech stocks this week, which analysts attributed to concerns over the return on investment in generative AI.

Leading AI firms, including OpenAI and Meta, have committed hundreds of billions of dollars to develop and operate the most advanced AI models in the coming years—far exceeding current revenues from the technology.

OpenAI’s finance chief, Sarah Friar, on Thursday retracted a suggestion that the US government should provide loan guarantees to help cover the enormous investments required for generative AI.