Anthropic co-founder and CEO Dario Amodei is in India this week. His plans include setting up an office in Bengaluru and exploring a partnership with Mukesh Ambani’s Reliance Industries. This move signals the AI startup’s effort to deepen its presence in its second-largest market after the United States.
Amodei is expected to visit Mumbai to meet Ambani and other senior executives at Reliance Industries. Reliance is India’s most valuable company and the parent of the nation’s top telecom operator, Reliance Jio. Anthropic has been in discussions with Reliance for some time over a potential partnership to expand access to its Claude AI assistant in India.
India has emerged as an important growth region for Anthropic. It is the world’s second-largest online market after China, with more than a billion internet subscribers. Several Indian AI startups already use Claude models in their products for both domestic and US clients. India also accounts for the second-highest share of traffic to the Claude website after the US.
In August, Reliance Industries partnered with major technology companies, including its existing investors Google and Meta. This partnership aims to build AI infrastructure and enterprise solutions through its new unit, Reliance Intelligence. The Mumbai-headquartered conglomerate had also explored a potential collaboration with OpenAI. OpenAI rolled out its low-cost ChatGPT plan in India earlier this year and announced plans to open an office in New Delhi later in 2025. That Reliance-OpenAI partnership was expected to be announced during OpenAI CEO Sam Altman’s planned visit to India last month, but Altman ultimately postponed the trip.
Alongside Mumbai, Amodei is visiting New Delhi to meet top lawmakers and senior federal government officials. He is also expected to meet Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
Later in the week, Amodei will be in Bengaluru to announce Anthropic’s office opening on Thursday. Anthropic EMEA head Guillaume Princen and startups chief Daniel Delaney are also accompanying him. Prominent venture funds, including Accel and Lightspeed, are hosting dedicated sessions with Anthropic executives this week. These sessions will share insights on how developers and startups can leverage Claude for their offerings.
The Claude app, available on iOS and Android, recorded a 48 percent year-over-year increase in downloads in India in September. It reached about 767,000 installs this year. Consumer spending on the app in India surged 572 percent year-over-year, generating 195,000 dollars in September alone.
The India figures remain modest compared with those in the United States. US downloads rose 91 percent year-over-year and consumer spending jumped 604 percent. US users spent 2.5 million dollars on the Claude app in September. Globally, the app saw 74 percent growth in downloads to 1.01 million and a 546 percent rise in consumer spending to 5.62 million dollars in the same month.
Unlike OpenAI, which aims to establish a sales and marketing setup while overseeing policy updates from New Delhi, Anthropic plans to target developers and startups with its office in Bengaluru. Anthropic is seeing its largest usage coming from India.
Alongside Anthropic and OpenAI, Perplexity is also looking to tap India’s market. The company has partnered with Indian telecom operator Bharti Airtel to offer its Perplexity Pro subscription to over 360 million Airtel customers for 12 months. The AI search startup has also refined its product for local users. This includes launching live earnings call transcripts for Indian stocks to attract more engagement from India.