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Crypto exchange OKX has restricted employees in Hong Kong from using Anthropic’s Claude artificial intelligence models after its corporate account was briefly suspended. Staff traveling through China will also not receive company support for accessing Claude.
OKX stopped providing Claude access to affected employees in early August. Its corporate account has since been restored, but the regional restrictions remain in place as the exchange adjusts its AI access policies.
OKX Restricts Claude for Hong Kong Staff
OKX said it discovered that some employee access in Hong Kong may not have complied with Anthropic’s geographic policies. Anthropic does not currently list Hong Kong or mainland China among the regions where Claude.ai and its commercial API are officially supported. OKX added that it would restrict Claude access for Hong Kong-based employees where required and direct their AI requests to other appropriate models. It said:
“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.”
Staff Traveling Through China Also Affected
An internal OKX message said employees traveling to Hong Kong or China would not receive support for accessing Claude through virtual private networks. A later message reiterated that staff could only use the service from supported regions.
Anthropic maintains geographic restrictions on Claude and does not currently list Hong Kong or mainland China among its supported regions.
OKX Continues Broader AI Push
The restrictions come as OKX encourages employees to use AI tools in their daily work. The company has made AI proficiency part of staff performance evaluations and provides access to models including Claude and OpenAI’s ChatGPT.
OKX said it spends between $6 million and $8 million each month across several major large-language-model providers. The restriction appears focused on regional access, while OKX continues to promote the use of AI tools elsewhere in the company.
