Anthropic is taking major steps to strengthen its presence in India, its second-largest market after the United States. According to TechCrunch, Anthropic’s co-founder and CEO Dario Amodei is visiting India this week, where he plans to open an office in Bangalore (Bengaluru) and explore potential partnership opportunities with billionaire Mukesh Ambani’s Reliance Industries.
Sources report that Amodei will meet with executives from Reliance Industries, India’s most valuable company and the parent of the country’s largest telecom operator, Reliance Jio. The two companies have long been in talks about expanding access to Anthropic’s Claude AI assistant in India. As the world’s second-largest online market after China, India is a key growth region for Anthropic — second only to the U.S. in traffic to the Claude website.
The planned Bangalore office underscores Anthropic’s strategy to focus on developers and startups in India. This approach contrasts with rival OpenAI, which plans to open a sales and marketing hub in New Delhi. During his trip, Amodei is also expected to meet with senior lawmakers and federal officials, including Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
Although India’s numbers are still smaller compared to the U.S., Anthropic’s growth in the region has been rapid. In September, downloads of the Claude app in India rose 48% year-over-year, reaching 767,000, while consumer spending within the app surged 572%, generating $195,000 in revenue that month alone.
Alongside Anthropic and OpenAI, other AI players like Perplexity are also partnering with local telecom operators to enter the Indian market — a sign that AI competition in India is intensifying.
