Anthropic says blocking China from Claude cost it hundreds of millions

Anthropic's CEO, Dario Amodei, has sat down with Bloomberg for a lengthy conversation about AI and related topics.

One of the topics touched on during the conversation was Anthropic's decision to sever China's access to its Claude models, which it announced in February 2026. Amodei stated during the interview that Anthropic's decision to limit the use of its models in China cost hundreds of millions of dollars, which at the time represented a significant portion of the company's revenue.

As for what Anthropic has officially stated about the matter, in its February 26 statement titled "Statement from Dario Amodei on our discussions with the Department of War," Amodei explains that it stopped several firms linked to the Chinese Communist Party from using Claude.

Notably, Anthropic said some of the firms were designated as Chinese Military Companies by the US government. Anthropic followed up in September 2025 by extending its restrictions to organizations that were more than 50% owned, directly or indirectly, by companies headquartered in unsupported regions, including mainland China. It should be noted that Chinese users aren't blocked from Anthropic's services, only entities related to the CCP.

"We put our money where our mouth is on China. We cut off access to models. We didn't have to do that. No one told us to do that. That cost us several hundred million dollars, back when several hundred million dollars was a significant fraction of our revenue," said Amodei

"The message we're trying to send is that we're different, and that has to be earned through the things we actually do. You can agree or disagree, but we stood up for our values," added Amodei