Anthropic is moving into a new London office as it seeks to expand its research and commercial footprint in Europe, setting up a scrap between the leading AI labs for talent emerging from British universities.

The company, which opened its first London office in 2023, is moving to the same neighborhood as Google DeepMind, OpenAI, Meta, Wayve, Isomorphic Labs, Synthesia, and various AI research institutions.

Anthropic’s new, 158,000-square-foot office footprint will have space enough for 800 people—four times its current head count—giving it room to potentially outscale OpenAI, which itself recently announced an expansion in London.

“Europe’s largest businesses and fastest-growing startups are choosing Claude, and we’re scaling to match,” says Pip White, head of EMEA North at Anthropic. “The UK combines ambitious enterprises and institutions that understand what’s at stake with AI safety with an exceptional pool of AI talent—we want to be where all of that comes together.

UK government officials had reportedly attempted to coax Anthropic into expanding its presence in London after the company recently fell out with the US administration. Anthropic refused to allow its models to be used in mass surveillance and autonomous weapon systems, leading to an ongoing legal battle between the AI lab and the Pentagon.

As part of the expansion, Anthropic says it will deepen its work with the UK’s AI Security Institute, a government body that this week published a risk evaluation of its latest model, Claude Mythos Preview. According to Politico, the UK government is one of few across Europe to have been granted access to the model, which Anthropic has released to only select parties, citing concerns over the potential for its abuse by cybercriminals.

The increasing concentration of AI companies in the same London district is an important step in creating a pathway for research to translate into AI products, says Geraint Rees, vice-provost at University College London, whose campus is around the corner from Anthropic’s new office.

“This cluster didn’t emerge from a planning document. It grew because serious researchers and companies understand that proximity isn’t a nice-to-have,” he said last month, speaking at an event attended by WIRED. “That’s how the innovation system actually works. It’s not a clean, linear transfer from lab to market. It’s messier, richer, more human than that.”