OKX bars staff in Hong Kong from using Anthropic’s Claude AI after account suspension scare

Crypto exchange OKX has restricted access to Anthropic’s Claude model for employees based in Hong Kong or traveling through China after its corporate account was briefly suspended, Bloomberg reported Wednesday. OKX stopped providing Claude access to staff in the region in early August following the suspension. Its corporate account has since been restored. “We recently became aware that access to Claude by certain OKX employees based in Hong Kong may not have been fully aligned with Anthropic’s geographic access policies,” OKX said. The company said it will restrict Claude access for Hong Kong employees where required and redirect their AI requests to other models. Anthropic does not permit access to Claude in Hong Kong or mainland China under its geographic access policies. Internal messages reviewed by Bloomberg also told employees traveling through Hong Kong or China that OKX would not support attempts to access Claude using virtual private networks. Staff were reminded this week that Claude can only be used from supported regions. The restrictions come despite OKX making AI proficiency part of employee performance evaluations and encouraging workers to integrate AI tools into t...