Anthropic builds AI research team in Zurich

(CONNECT) Anthropic has established a branch in Zurich. The San Francisco-based company, which focuses on AI security and research, is described in an article in the technology and start-up medium "TechCrunch" as the biggest competitor to ChatGPT inventor OpenAI in the USA. Anthropic's planned expansion into Europe was also announced there in May last year. At the same time, Anthropic announced that its AI assistant Claude for work and business applications is now also available in several languages in Europe.

The launch in Europe followed the expansion of Anthropic's interface (API) to Europe so that developers can use and integrate its models. According to "TechCrunch", both are part of a larger push by the start-up to accelerate its growth. For example, on February 14, 2025, the company announced that it had signed a contract with the British government to investigate how AI can transform public services.

Up until a year ago, Anthropic had raised almost 8 billion dollars in investments, with a company valuation of 18.4 billion dollars. The 60 or so investors include Amazon, Google, Salesforce, SAP and Zoom. "As a global center for AI research, Zurich is an ideal location for Anthropic to expand its European presence," said Scientific Director Jared Kaplan, explaining the decision in favor of Zurich in a statement from the Greater Zurich Area location promotion agency.

Neil Houlsby is to build up the team on site. Houlsby comes from Google DeepMind. He specializes in neural architectures, computer vision and large language models (LLM). "In Zurich, we will be working on LLM training, focusing on developing multimodal skills for Claude," he writes in a post on LinkedIn. ce/mm