Samsung SDS has entered into a strategic partnership with Anthropic, the company behind the generative AI model Claude. The move reinforces Samsung SDS’s collaborative framework with global AI firms, following earlier deals with OpenAI and Google Cloud, as it accelerates efforts to capture South Korea’s enterprise AI market.
Samsung SDS CEO Lee Jun-hee and Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei signed the Strategic Partnership Agreement on July 24 (local time) at the San Francisco AI Summit 2026, held at The Midway in San Francisco, the companies announced on July 25. South Korean President Lee Jae-myung and Samsung Electronics Chairman Lee Jae-yong also attended the signing ceremony.
Under the agreement, the two companies will cooperate across three main pillars: jointly discovering new AI business opportunities in South Korea, cultivating Applied AI Engineers capable of deploying and operating Claude, and supporting the AI-native transformation of Samsung affiliates.
First, the partners plan to actively pursue joint marketing, proof-of-concept projects, and collaborative ventures to expand Claude-based AI adoption among South Korean enterprises. Samsung SDS intends to leverage its digital transformation experience across manufacturing, finance, and public sectors to support customized AI implementations for corporate clients.
The partnership also places significant emphasis on talent development. Samsung SDS will operate an Applied AI Engineer training program designed to equip professionals with the skills to design, build, and operate Claude services tailored to enterprise environments. These engineers will be trained as hands-on specialists handling the entire lifecycle—from AI adoption planning and implementation to operations and technical support.
The scale of Claude’s rollout across Samsung affiliates is substantial. Samsung SDS currently provides Claude Enterprise, its corporate AI service, to roughly 70,000 employees across 20 Samsung affiliates. This forms part of the company’s “Client Zero” strategy, where new technologies are first applied and validated internally before being extended to external customers. Following Samsung SDS’s early internal deployment of Claude Enterprise, employees exchanged over one million messages with Claude within the first few weeks, and approximately half of users are now utilizing Claude Code, the company’s AI coding tool.
With this partnership, Samsung SDS further solidifies its open collaboration strategy with global AI leaders. In December last year, Samsung SDS became the first South Korean company to sign a reseller and service partner agreement for OpenAI’s ChatGPT Enterprise, and in April this year, it added reseller rights for ChatGPT Edu. That same month, it also forged a strategic partnership with Google Cloud spanning AI, cloud, and security, offering Gemini Enterprise and agentic AI solutions to corporate clients. The addition of Anthropic means Samsung SDS now boasts a portfolio encompassing all major external generative AI services—ChatGPT, Claude, and Gemini.
“Samsung SDS has the capabilities to play a pivotal role in accelerating Claude adoption among Korean enterprises, which is why we entered into this strategic partnership,” said Chris Ciauri, Head of International at Anthropic.
In his keynote address, CEO Lee Jun-hee stated, “We have moved beyond the era of merely utilizing AI into an era where companies and nations with AI-native competitiveness will lead the future.” He emphasized that “since AI innovation cannot be achieved by any single company alone, open collaboration with global AI firms is the most critical competitive advantage.” Lee added, “This strategic partnership is the starting point for combining Anthropic’s AI technology with Samsung SDS’s industry-specific digital innovation experience to jointly drive growth in South Korea’s AI market. We will support our customers’ AI transformation and create new business value through trustworthy AI solutions.”
Meanwhile, Samsung SDS is also strengthening its proprietary AI infrastructure. The company plans to provide AI infrastructure through the Samsung Cloud Platform, GPU-as-a-Service, and global multi-cloud offerings, while supporting the entire enterprise AI journey—from adoption to implementation and operations—via its generative AI platform FabriX and work automation solution BrityWorks.