Anthropic plans to soon introduce its latest large language models, including Sonnet 5 and Opus 5, on Amazon Web Services (AWS) Seoul region and speed up its push into South Korea's enterprise market. Anthropic will also work with AWS to step up efforts to target the domestic financial sector.

Choi Ki-young (최기영), head of Anthropic Korea, said at the AWS Financial Service Forum Seoul 2026 keynote speech and a media briefing on Aug. 27, "We are providing the Haiku, Sonnet and Opus models through AWS Bedrock. Soon the latest models will be available on the AWS Seoul region as well." He stressed, "That would allow us to better meet domestic data sovereignty requirements."

Choi appears to expect AI adoption to expand in South Korea's financial sector as network separation regulations are eased. He sees the AWS Seoul region as significantly broadening areas that financial regulators or security-sensitive companies can use, starting with data residency.

"There are cases where customers want data stored due to regulations such as audit responses," Choi said. "If data can be stored in the Seoul region in a security-assured area, for example in a VPC, it can meet a substantial portion of key requirements."

"Some customers are sensitive about data going overseas during the inference process, but processing in the Seoul region can address those concerns," he said. "Being able to use the latest models such as Opus 5 will be a very good opportunity in terms of properly using frontier models."

According to him, domestic financial companies, like those in other industries, are already thinking extensively about applying AI to real work rather than staying at the pilot or proof-of-concept (PoC) stage.

"An important change is that AI has become an agenda item emphasised by top management," Choi said. "CEO-level executives are taking vibe coding training themselves and showing interest. A management-driven movement is also becoming prominent in South Korea. Executive interest in AI is far greater than when pushing cloud or digital transformation in the past."

Anthropic Korea is also actively developing solutions to support financial companies, in addition to cooperating with AWS. At the headquarters level, it introduced a 'Claude for Financial' service to support issues related to data or regulations that financial industry workers struggle with.

Choi said, "The key is not to release a software solution but to enable people to use the models well and to provide industry best practices based on the models." He said, "Claude for Financial reflects many U.S. financial practices, so it is difficult for South Korean companies to use it as it is. We are therefore holding discussions with domestic financial companies to provide Claude for Financial tailored to the South Korean market."