Anthropic announced on 26 May the appointment of KiYoung Choi as Representative Director — effectively CEO — of Anthropic Korea, ahead of the formal opening of its Seoul office. The following day, the company announced the establishment of a Milan office, marking two international expansions in consecutive days as part of a broader push to serve growing demand outside the United States.
The Seoul office reflects exceptional Claude adoption in South Korea. The country demonstrates 3.5 times higher Claude usage than its population size would predict — one of the highest per-capita adoption rates globally. Government agencies and major Korean conglomerates are already in the pipeline for access to Claude Mythos, Anthropic's frontier security-focused model currently deployed through the Project Glasswing cybersecurity programme. Choi's appointment signals Anthropic's intent to build deep relationships with Korea's technology ecosystem rather than serving the market remotely.
The Milan office serves a different strategic purpose. Italy and the broader European market require GDPR-compliant infrastructure and local presence for regulated industries — particularly financial services, healthcare, and government. The Milan operation creates a pathway for European customers to access Claude Security offerings with the compliance guarantees that regulated sectors demand. Italy was notably the first EU country to temporarily ban ChatGPT over privacy concerns in 2023, making a local Anthropic presence particularly significant for rebuilding institutional trust in AI providers.
The twin expansions come at a time when Anthropic's business metrics are accelerating rapidly. Run-rate revenue has surpassed $30 billion — up from approximately $9 billion at the end of 2025 — and the company recently filed a confidential S-1 for a potential IPO at a $965 billion valuation.
For context engineers, Anthropic's international expansion means that Claude's enterprise support, security offerings, and partnership programmes are becoming genuinely global. Developers and organisations in Asia and Europe will increasingly have local Anthropic teams to work with, reducing the friction of building production applications on Claude's infrastructure across different regulatory environments.
