LONDON mayor Sir Sadiq Khan has written to the boss of American AI company Anthropic, inviting the firm to expand its presence in the capital after it fell out spectacularly with the White House, reported the Times.
In a letter to Anthropic chief executive Dario Amodei, Khan praised the company for refusing to allow the US military to use its technology for domestic surveillance and autonomous weapons, a decision that led to the cancellation of its Pentagon contract and an extraordinary public row with president Donald Trump.
US defence secretary Pete Hegseth last week designated Anthropic a "supply chain risk", the first time the label has been applied to a company, which restricts how other military suppliers can work with the firm. Trump had earlier declared Anthropic a "radical left, woke company" and threatened criminal action against it.
Khan used his letter to criticise the designation directly. "It is extremely concerning to see this kind of behaviour, which is a clear attempt to intimidate and punish Anthropic for refusing to remove ethical safeguards," he wrote. "I applaud your steadfastness in the face of such pressure."
The mayor told Amodei that London could offer a "stable, proportionate and pro-innovation environment" for the company to grow, and asked to meet him on his next visit to Britain to discuss how the capital "could provide an even more significant location and platform for the future of Anthropic."
Khan also said he wanted to discuss training Londoners with AI skills as other jobs are displaced by the technology, a concern he has raised publicly, warning that AI could become a "weapon of mass destruction of jobs" in finance and professional services if proper safeguards are not put in place.
Anthropic, which makes the AI assistant Claude, already has a London office, opened in 2023. Its rival OpenAI recently announced that London would become its biggest base outside its San Francisco headquarters.
Amodei, for his part, has vowed to challenge the "supply chain risk" designation in the US courts, saying it had a "narrow scope" and that the law required the least restrictive means necessary to protect the supply chain.
The move by Khan is likely to add fresh friction to an already strained relationship between the mayor and Trump. The US president has previously branded Khan "horrible" and made unsubstantiated claims about the state of London under his leadership.
