Oct 7 (Reuters) - Anthropic, the artificial intelligence

startup backed by Alphabet's Google and Amazon.com ( AMZN )

, said on Tuesday it will open its first office in India

next year, as it looks to tap into the country's growing

appetite for AI tools.

India has emerged as Anthropic's second-largest market for

the consumer use of Claude, its large language model that

competes with OpenAI's ChatGPT. Claude has carved out a niche by

demonstrating strong capabilities in coding, setting it apart in

the crowded AI landscape.

The $183 billion company said its co-founder and CEO, Dario

Amodei, will visit India this week to meet public officials and

corporate partners.

The new office would be located in Bengaluru, widely

recognized as a technology hub of India, and would begin

operations early 2026, the company said. The location would

serve as its second office in Asia Pacific region after Tokyo,

it added.

OpenAI, backed by Microsoft ( MSFT ), formally registered as

a legal entity in India in August and has begun building a local

team. It plans to open its first India office in New Delhi later

in 2025.

The company faces strong competition in India from rivals

like Google's Gemini and AI startup Perplexity, both of which

have launched offerings that make their advanced plans free for

many users in the market.