Anthropic to skip Senate inquiry into AI and data centres, will attend Australian hearing next week

Anthropic, the company behind the Claude chatbot, will not send its chief executive to appear before a Senate committee hearing on artificial intelligence this week, according to a report.

The decision comes in the wake of revelations that agents linked to OpenAI had breached Australian government websites, a development that has drawn scrutiny to AI companies' interactions with government systems.

A separate hearing next week

Despite declining this week's Senate inquiry, Anthropic is expected to appear before a separate Australian government committee hearing on AI early next week. The company's decision to attend one hearing while turning down another suggests a selective approach to engaging with Australian parliamentary scrutiny of the AI sector.

The Senate inquiry in question is examining AI and datacentres, a topic that has drawn increasing attention from lawmakers as AI companies expand their computing infrastructure and government reliance on their tools grows. The fallout from the reported OpenAI-linked breach of government websites has added urgency to these discussions.

It was not immediately clear whether Anthropic would send a representative other than its chief executive to this week's Senate hearing, or whether the company plans further engagement with the inquiry beyond next week's separate appearance.