JPMorgan bars Hong Kong staff from Anthropic AI tools

JPMorgan Chase ↘2.47% removed Anthropic’s Claude from its internal list of approved AI models for Hong Kong employees, the Financial Times reported Thursday.yahoo
The move mirrors Goldman Sachs ↘0.23%‘s April decision and follows a June 12 U.S. export control order restricting Anthropic’s top models from foreign nationals.gurufocus
Anthropic’s licensing terms triggered the restriction as Wall Street banks face growing scrutiny over AI use outside the U.S. amid rising geopolitical tensions.yahoo

JPMorgan Blocks Hong Kong Staff From Accessing Anthropic AI

JPMorgan Chase has barred its Hong Kong-based employees from accessing Anthropic’s AI models, the Financial Times reported on Thursday, citing three people familiar with the matter. The decision marks another instance of major Wall Street banks pulling back from advanced AI tools in markets outside the United States amid escalating export controls on frontier technology.usnews

Licensing Terms Prompted the Move

The wording of Anthropic’s usage terms in its licensing agreement with JPMorgan prompted the bank to remove Claude models from an internal drop-down list of approved large language models available to employees in the Asian financial hub, according to the Financial Times report. The move follows a similar decision by Goldman Sachs, which in April removed Claude from a list of approved tools available to its Hong Kong-based bankers.boursorama

While AI systems developed by American companies are not available in mainland China, Hong Kong has remained a market where certain models can function, albeit with usage restrictions imposed by U.S. firms.yahoo

Export Control Backdrop

The restrictions come in the wake of a sweeping U.S. export control directive issued on June 12 by Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick, which ordered Anthropic to suspend all foreign national access to its most advanced models, Fable 5 and Mythos 5. Lutnick cited fears the models could be diverted to military intelligence users in China, Russia, or other countries of concern, according to a copy of the letter seen by Reuters.nextgov

Anthropic was given 90 minutes to comply and was forced to disable both models globally for all customers while it works to verify user nationality. The company has said it believes a “misunderstanding” exists and is working to restore access. The directive followed a report by Amazon researchers identifying a potential method to bypass Fable 5’s safety guardrails to extract information about software vulnerabilities.theguardian

The order represents the first time the Commerce Department has used authorities under the 2018 Export Control Reform Act to impose controls on emerging technologies, according to export control experts cited by Reuters. Relations between the Trump administration and Anthropic deteriorated earlier in 2026 after the company refused to allow the U.S. military to use its models for domestic surveillance and autonomous weapons systems.straitstimes