Anthropic announces major UK expansion amid Mythos testing
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The news: AI lab Anthropic is expanding its presence in the UK with new office space for 800 people in the ‘Knowledge Quarter’ area of London, where OpenAI, Google DeepMind, Meta and other AI firms have set up shop. The company current has around 200 employees in London.
The context: “London is already one of our most important research and commercial hubs outside the US, and our expansion in the Knowledge Quarter gives us the room to grow into,” Pip White, Anthropic’s head of EMEA north, said in a statement.
“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.”
White also said that the company is expanding its ‘Project Glasswing’ program in the UK, giving certain organisations early access to its new AI model ‘Mythos’ to give cybersecurity professionals a chance to test it against internal defences as it could exploit cyber vulnerabilities.
White told Bloomberg Television the release to selected UK financial institutions could begin “in the next week”, adding that “the engagement I have had from UK CEOs in the last week has been significant.”
After Anthropic announced the Glasswing program, US regulators met with Wall Street institutions in urgent meetings last week to discuss the risks, and the European Central Bank is set to convene similar meetings with EU lenders later this week.
Australian super funds have sought regulatory approval to share sensitive intelligence as concerns mount over rising cybersecurity risks from Anthropic’s Mythos model. Capital Brief revealed on Wednesday that the industry’s peak body the Association of Superannuation Funds of Australia is seeking authorisation from the ACCC to allow the super sector to share criminal intelligence and co-ordinate their responses to cyber-attacks as they try to protect Australian retirement savings from bad actors.
