Anthropic is stepping up its global enterprise ambitions.
The $183 billion artificial intelligence startup has grown its business customer base from under 1,000 to more than 300,000 in just two years, as demand for Claude‘s models accelerates across industries and regions.
On Friday, the company announced it will triple its international workforce and expand its applied AI team fivefold in 2025, as it scales beyond the U.S. and intensifies competition with OpenAI, Microsoft and Google.
That expansion comes as international demand increasingly drives the company’s momentum.
In an exclusive interview, Chief Commercial Officer Paul Smith told CNBC that Anthropic’s international growth is outpacing even their most ambitious forecasts, with major customers coming online well before boots hit the ground.
“What is amazing is we haven’t, up until recently, had significant human presence in Europe, in Japan, in our international markets, and yet we already have a very, very significant business over there,” said Smith.
He pointed to rapid adoption in sectors like life sciences and sovereign wealth management.
At Novo Nordisk, the Danish pharmaceutical giant behind Ozempic, Claude helped compress what’s typically a three-month analysis and reporting phase at the end of a drug development cycle into just a few days.
Smith said Anthropic is now ramping up hiring across its priority global markets.
The company is recruiting country leads for India, Australia and New Zealand, Korea, and Singapore, with broader expansion underway across the UK, northern and southern Europe, Germany, Austria, and Switzerland.
As part of its international push, Anthropic is opening its first Asia office in Tokyo and scaling operations across Europe — including more than 100 new roles in Dublin and London and a research-focused hub in Zurich. Additional locations are expected to follow in the coming months.
The global expansion is being spearheaded by Chris Ciauri, who recently joined Anthropic as managing director of international. A longtime enterprise veteran, Ciauri previously served as CEO of Unily and held senior roles at Google Cloud and Salesforce, where he worked alongside Smith and helped grow EMEA revenue from $200 million to more than $3 billion.
“G20 governments are approaching us about doing really, really interesting things at a citizen enablement level,” he told CNBC, adding that large companies across Europe and Asia are also now engaging Anthropic on industry-specific use cases.
A new front in the AI wars
Anthropic’s push abroad comes as the enterprise AI race enters a more mature and competitive phase.
The company recently hit a $5 billion revenue run-rate, up from $87 million at the start of 2024, fueled by growing demand for its Claude family of models in enterprise environments.
That milestone puts Anthropic squarely in competition with the incumbents.
OpenAI this week launched an $850 billion global infrastructure expansion with Oracle, Nvidia, and SoftBank to support continued growth. Microsoft and Google, meanwhile, are embedding AI into every layer of their productivity, cloud, and developer ecosystems — making it easier for CIOs to tack on tools like Copilot or Gemini without overhauling their stack.
Anthropic is betting that companies want more than an add-on.
The pitch is a pure-play AI experience, with direct access to Claude’s frontier models — not just a wrapper inside legacy software. That strategy has become a key point of differentiation as enterprises shift from experimentation to implementation at scale.
Across sectors, organizations are now embedding AI into core workflows, not just for summarization or chat, but for tasks like customer service, fraud detection, regulatory analysis, code review, and complex decision-making.
Still, Smith said most large enterprises are adopting hybrid strategies combining direct access to Claude with integrations through AWS, Google Cloud, and other third-party platforms, and emphasized that these partnerships are additive, not competitive.
“There’s a very good reason why, if you’re an AWS customer, you should also consume Anthropic through Bedrock — and if you’re a great Google customer, through Vertex,” he said.
Ultimately, he said, an enterprise will have a multi-faceted relationship with a player like Anthropic.
Anthropic’s applied AI team, which helps customers deploy Claude at scale, is set to grow fivefold in the next year.
Unlike some rivals, the company doesn’t rely on productivity suite integration or a legacy install base. Its focus is on building deep, domain-specific systems tailored to verticals like telecom, pharmaceuticals, financial services, and government.
“You need the applied AI team that understands their particular industry context,” Smith said.
He explained that true enterprise deployment also requires a broader ecosystem: both large global systems integrators and niche consultancies trained to implement Claude Code and build custom agents.
Anthropic is also investing in 24/7 support and infrastructure for data sovereignty — especially important for customers in regulated sectors.
“We’re meticulously working through everything that you need that removes the barriers to adoption in these very large enterprises,” Smith said, emphasizing that enterprise isn’t just one part of their business, it’s the entire focus.
At the same time, OpenAI has been aggressively scaling its international enterprise efforts.
OpenAI Chief Operating Officer Brad Lightcap has grown the company’s go-to-market team from about 50 to more than 700 over the past 18 months, spanning sales, customer success, developer relations, and strategic partnerships.
Last month, OpenAI opened offices in Brazil, India, and Australia — and this week in Abilene, Texas, CEO Sam Altman told CNBC that usage of ChatGPT has surged roughly tenfold over the past 18 months, thanks in large part to growth on the enterprise side.
That momentum continued on Thursday, when OpenAI deepened its enterprise reach with a formal integration into Databricks — signaling a new phase in its push for commercial adoption.
Claude’s global customer base
As enterprise AI adoption accelerates, so too does scrutiny.
A recent MIT study found that many so-called deployments have shown little to no measurable impact — raising real questions about how deeply these tools are actually being integrated. But Anthropic executives say Claude is already delivering tangible results at scale.
Across Europe and Asia-Pacific, Claude is powering core enterprise operations.
At Norway’s Norges Bank Investment Management, the world’s largest sovereign wealth fund, Claude helps analyze multi-billion-dollar investments and has already saved 213,000 hours, a 20% productivity gain across 9,000 portfolio companies.
Novo Nordisk cut clinical documentation time from more than 10 weeks to 10 minutes and halved review cycles. SK Telecom, which is deploying Claude in Korea as part of a company-wide AI overhaul, boosted customer service quality by 34%. The European Parliament made millions of historical documents searchable and translatable, and the Commonwealth Bank of Australia slashed scam losses by 50%.
“The demand signal we’ve got is unprecedented. It’s like nothing I’ve ever seen,” said Smith.“There isn’t a single enterprise in the world where they don’t have some kind of software development backlog.”
Smith said Claude Code, launched in May, is already a $500 million product, with usage up 10x in just three months.
“It’s one of the fastest-growing products that’s ever been launched,” he said. “It’s an entry point. Happens to be an incredibly popular entry point right now.”
But the impact goes well beyond software development.
Localization — both linguistic and cultural — is part of what Ciauri sees as a key differentiator. He pointed to Panasonic’s Claude integration as an example, with the Japanese conglomerate using their models tailored to local language and cultural context.
“That’s a super important differentiator as you think about how you really maximize results for enterprise,” said Ciauri.
“You get these pockets of success,” Smith added, “that you can then start to scale.”
Lotus Cars’ compelling, high-performance electric sports sedan and SUV received a number of fresh updates earlier this week, but packs superior infotainment tech, styling tweaks, and (of course) a mind-bending 905 electric horsepower. (!)
The next update on the list is the addition of 22″, 10-spoke ultralight alloy wheels across the entire Eletre lineup. Both the 600 and 600 SE variants retain last year’s 6-piston fixed front and floating rear brake calipers, while the top-tier 900 model gets a high-performance, 10-piston, carbon-ceramic braking system that’s more than capable of hauling the Eletre SUV down from speed, lap after lap.
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They’ll need those brakes, too – because these things are fast, and getting faster with seemingly every new software update. “Things can always go faster,” reads the official Lotus copy. “The new Eletre and Emeya ‘900’ provide unmistakable evidence, representing superlatives in terms of performance. Both rely on a 675 kW (~915 hp) strong dual-motor powertrain.”
Both Lotus 900s can put that power to the ground effectively enough to rocket from 0-62 mph (100 km) in a well under 3.0 seconds on their way to an electronically-limited top speed of 155 mph (256 km/h) in the Eletre, and 160 mph (265 km/h) in the Emeya. The 600s aren’t exactly slow, either, packing 405 kW electric motors (~600 hp) good for 0-60 times in the mid 4s.
Inside, the Eletre and Emeya designs carries over without major changes. Lotus enhanced the features list on various trims. The 600 models now include 12-way power-adjustable front seats with heating and ventilation, as well as 15-speaker audio systems from KEF. The 600 SE further adds a PDLC smart panoramic sunroof, 20-way power-adjustable front seats, front seat massage function, and active rear-wheel steering.
CarNewsChina reports that the updated 900 model builds upon the 600 SE’s new offerings with an intelligent, active anti-roll control suspension system.
Pricing for the 2026 Lotus EVs starts at 538,000 yuan (74,800 USD) in China, and climbs to over 838,000 yuan (116,500 USD) for the top-shelf Lotus Eletre 900 SUV. All models carry the same two-speed transmission and 112 kWh battery (102 kWh in the UK), good for up to 610 km (~375 miles) of driving between charges.
It wasn’t that long ago that a 900+ hp car was a cammy, rough-riding mess of a machine that you could barely take through a drive thru, but could probably land on the cover of a car magazine. Today, that same 900 hp in a quiet, smooth, reliable EV hardly generates a headline. And, almost in defiance of the “everything just keeps getting more expensive” truism, these mind-bending supercars can be had for less than what cars like this used to cost with gas engines and a third of the power.
If you’re considering going solar, it’s always a good idea to get quotes from a few installers. To make sure you find a trusted, reliable solar installer near you that offers competitive pricing, check out EnergySage, a free service that makes it easy for you to go solar. It has hundreds of pre-vetted solar installers competing for your business, ensuring you get high-quality solutions and save 20-30% compared to going it alone. Plus, it’s free to use, and you won’t get sales calls until you select an installer and share your phone number with them.
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The welding equipment experts at Lincoln Electric know a thing or two about high-voltage equipment. Now, they’re bringing that electrical expertise to a whole new market with a portable, self-contained, 50 kW DC fast charger designed to deliver a quick shot of range and get stranded drivers back on the road.
Lincoln Electric’s Velion 50 kW DC fast charger is pitched as a durable, compact mobile charging unit that’s perfect for tow truck operators and construction fleets dealing with vehicles and fleet assets that couldn’t quite make their way back to a charger. So, you’re looking at this and thinking of one of those red, 5-gallon gas tanks that helps get drivers off the highway and to the next exit, congratulations: you get it!
“[Velion is] Designed for flexible, mobile use,” said Bruce Chantry, Vice President, Electric Vehicle Solutions at Lincoln Electric, during a buzzword-packed introduction of the new machine. “Designed in collaboration with the market and leveraging decades of expertise in power electronics, our solution is engineered to provide the flexibility customers need today, with a future-ready design to meet the demands of tomorrow.”
Designed, engineered, and assembled in the United States with over 70% domestic content, the Velion charger meets all National Electric Vehicle Infrastructure (NEVI) and Build America, Buy America (BABA) requirements.
Lincoln Electric plans to sell the Velion DCFC to municipal fleets and state highway agencies, first, and envisions it being deployed in tough environments like construction sites, emergency response arenas, and complex fixed fleet depots. Car dealerships, museums, and probably ambulances too, could benefit – but I’m sure that’s just scratching the surface.
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Watch the Lincoln Electric launch video for the Velion from earlier this summer, below, then let us know how you’d like to see a mobile fast charger get deployed in the comments section at the bottom of the page.
Lincoln Electric Velion DCFC
Velion 50 kW mobile charger; via Lincoln Electric.
The company hasn’t announced pricing or battery energy capacity (in kWh) for the new Velion, but I’d guess it’s something higher than 15 kWh, but less than 20. If you guys have a better guess, I’d love to hear it!
If you’re considering going solar, it’s always a good idea to get quotes from a few installers. To make sure you find a trusted, reliable solar installer near you that offers competitive pricing, check out EnergySage, a free service that makes it easy for you to go solar. It has hundreds of pre-vetted solar installers competing for your business, ensuring you get high-quality solutions and save 20-30% compared to going it alone. Plus, it’s free to use, and you won’t get sales calls until you select an installer and share your phone number with them.
Your personalized solar quotes are easy to compare online and you’ll get access to unbiased Energy Advisors to help you every step of the way. Get started here.
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Electric vehicles have come a long way, but let’s be real—they still have their hangups: “range anxiety,” long charging times, and questions about safety and sustainability. But what if all those worries could be put to rest?
At IAA Mobility in Munich, CATL, one of the world’s biggest battery makers, unveiled a new technology that could revolutionize EVs.
Shenxing Pro: Go Far, Last Long
CATL debuted two versions of its next-gen Shenxing Pro battery. One is all about distance and durability. Picture this: a single charge gets you up to 758 km (or about 470 miles). That’s enough to drive from Houston to Memphis without a single stop. And it’s not just about the distance; this thing is built to last. It promises a lifespan of 12 years or 1,000,000 km, with only around 9% degradation after 200,000 km. That’s a huge leap from today’s EV batteries, which often lose up to 30% of their capacity over the same period.
Fast Charging, Even When It’s Freezing
Tired of waiting around for your car to charge? The second version of the Shenxing Pro is for you. It’s the Super Fast Charging model, designed to get you back on the road in minutes. CATL says it can add a whopping 478 km of range in just 10 minutes under perfect conditions. And here’s the best part: it holds its own in the cold. We all know how much cold weather messes with most EV batteries, but the Shenxing Pro still delivers up to 410 km of range in just 20 minutes at a chilling -20°C. That’s better than many EVs perform in normal temperatures!
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No Propagation 3.0: Safety First
Safety is a top concern with EV batteries, especially the risk of thermal runaway—that’s when one cell overheats and triggers a dangerous chain reaction. CATL’s new No Propagation 3.0 platform is engineered to stop that domino effect cold. It uses special fireproof coatings and a cell structure that quickly cools down and relieves pressure. In the rare event of a problem, the battery can still provide stable power for over an hour. That extra time is a lifeline, giving drivers the chance to get to safety and ensuring critical systems like advanced driver-assistance features stay online when you need them most.
Getting Greener, At Scale
CATL is also tackling the sustainability issue head-on. Through a new initiative called the Global Energy Circular Commitment (GECC), they aim to cut the use of new raw materials by half over the next two decades. They’re already a leader in this space, operating the world’s largest battery recycling network. Since 2024, they’ve recycled over 130,000 tons of used batteries, recovering 99.6% of crucial metals like nickel, cobalt, and manganese.
The Whole Package
What’s so impressive about the Shenxing Pro isn’t just one feature—it’s everything working together. By improving range, charging speed, safety, and sustainability all at once, CATL isn’t just fixing a single problem; they’re taking on the biggest obstacles to widespread EV adoption. If these batteries live up to the hype, the next wave of EVs could be more efficient, more reliable, and a whole lot greener.
The bottom line? CATL’s latest battery tech in tandem with other commitments could prove to be the building blocks for the next wave of EVs in Europe and beyond.
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