MILAN, May 28 (Reuters) - Anthropic will continue expanding in Europe after opening its sixth office on the continent in Milan on Thursday, Chris Ciauri, managing director for international at the U.S. AI startup, said.
The company plans to triple its international workforce to meet rising demand for its Claude large language models outside the United States. Its European bases include Dublin, Zurich, Munich and Paris, as well as a London office currently employing about 200 staff.
Ciauri did not disclose planned hiring in Milan.
"We've publicly announced in London a few weeks back that we're opening a new office and we'll have 800 employees there. So Milan will get a lot bigger, Paris will get a lot bigger, Munich will get a lot bigger. There will be more offices," he said.
The expansion comes as companies across Europe race to deploy AI systems to boost productivity, while policymakers debate how to regulate the fast-moving technology.
"We actually like the makeup of the Italian economy because we think it suits some of the things we do particularly well," Ciauri told Reuters in Milan.
He added the Milan office will initially focus on sales, marketing, and pre- and post-sales technical support for clients such as insurer Generali, financial group Unipol, tyre maker Pirelli, tech company Bending Spoons and payments firm Satispay.
"We'll also have policy people in the market because there's lots of conversations around AI and ethics", he said.
Anthropic co-founder Christopher Olah was the only Big Tech representative invited to a presentation this week of Pope Leo's first encyclical, which addressed the challenges posed by AI.
"I think it's representative of the fact that we have built a reputation around being vocal around safety, around ethical AI, being clear-eyed around what it could mean for jobs, what it could mean for wealth concentration. And we've pushed to get governments and ethical institutions at the table", said Ciauri.
Anthropic has clashed with the Trump administration, notably by insisting on guardrails restricting how its models can be used for military purposes, such as autonomous weapons targeting or domestic surveillance.
(Reporting by Elvira Pollina. Editing by Mark Potter)
