Anthropic just signed a lease on a 158,000-square-foot London office that can hold up to 800 people. The company currently has around 200 staff in the city. That’s not expanding. That’s quadrupling.
OpenAI, not to be outdone, confirmed plans for its first permanent London office with capacity for 544 employees, expected to open in 2027. It will be OpenAI’s largest research hub outside the US.
London’s quiet transformation into an AI capital
DeepMind, now owned by Google, has operated in London since 2010. More than one million square feet of office space has been leased by AI-linked firms in London since early 2025.
Anthropic first opened a London office back in 2023, establishing an initial foothold. The new lease represents a fundamentally different level of commitment. Pip White, Anthropic’s head of EMEA north, pointed to London’s “exceptional AI talent pool” as the primary reason for the expansion.
