The UK government is actively courting Anthropic, the San Francisco-based artificial intelligence company behind the Claude chatbot, with incentives including a London office expansion and a dual stock market listing, the Financial Times has reported.
The approach has been backed by the Prime Minister's office and the Labour government, according to the FT, as ministers seek to attract one of the world's most prominent AI companies amid its deteriorating relationship with Washington.
Anthropic's US troubles stem from its refusal to permit its AI to be used for autonomous weapons and mass surveillance, a position that led the Pentagon to brand the company a supply-chain risk and move to terminate its defence contract.
A US judge subsequently blocked the listing of Anthropic's technology on a restricted-entities register while the company pursues a second legal challenge against the designation.
Pentagon insiders have suggested it could take months to fully disentangle government systems from Anthropic's technology, despite executive orders to halt use of the firm's products entirely.
The US Department of Defense has since signed a replacement contract with OpenAI, Anthropic's chief rival, a move that drew widespread criticism.
Anthropic has also faced separate difficulties following a leak of internal source code that exposed details of the company's strategic plans.
The Department for Science, Innovation and Technology has not commented on the reported discussions, and Anthropic has yet to respond publicly.
If confirmed, a UK expansion would represent a significant coup for the government's ambitions to establish Britain as a leading destination for frontier AI development.