British politics moves pretty quickly nowadays, so you may or may not remember Rishi Sunak. The relatively young Conservative Member of Parliament (MP) served as the U.K.’s Prime Minister for almost two years, and he did chalk up a couple of small wins along the way. But now, it looks like he’s focusing less on his constituency and more on the future of Big Tech.
If you take a look at Sunak’s LinkedIn profile, he’s now listing himself as a senior adviser to both Microsoft (MSFT) and Anthropic. That’s not a massive surprise, as he did float around some big financial companies and corporations before entering politics. But this Anthropic gig is particularly interesting.
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Nobody’s hired Rishi Sunak for his tech prowess. He’s not there to work on the next version of Claude or write code. He’s there to help one of the world's most valuable AI companies figure out what governments want and how to navigate shifting geopolitical tides.
It’s worth pointing out that Sunak has promised the U.K. Government he won’t lobby for Anthropic, and his salary from the company is going to charity. Yet the appointment still tells us quite a lot about Anthropic and where it’s heading.
Sunak is Advising Anthropic on the Stuff Governments Care About
Given Rishi Sunak’s background, you can see why Anthropic would have wanted him. Before he became PM, Sunak spent 14 years in financial services and invested a lot of his personal wealth in Big Tech. He also got his MBA at Stanford a while back, so he’s no stranger to Silicon Valley.
That’s why nobody was surprised when AI became one of the biggest policy issues during Sunak’s short run leading the country.
Sunak was definitely the driving force behind the big 2023 AI Safety Summit at Bletchley Park, which was pretty much the first time governments and technology companies really sat down together to talk about how AI systems were developing. His government also launched the U.K.'s AI Safety Institute.
Things didn’t work out well for Sunak politically. But he’s now a goldmine for hot tips about the mechanisms of central banking, government mechanisms, financial markets, and national security initiatives. In 2026, that’s undoubtedly the sort of perspective a powerful AI company needs to continue building momentum.
Anthropic is becoming increasingly intertwined with Western governments. Only last year, the U.K. Government signed a memorandum of understanding with Anthropic to explore using Claude to improve public services and collaborate on AI security research. And it looks like Anthropic knows that’s the easiest pathway to sustainable growth.
When Anthropic looks to the future, the company’s not contemplating unloading short-term subscriptions onto developers. It’s thinking about national security, government procurement, healthcare, and energy infrastructure. Unfortunately, nailing down those contracts has less to do with flashy tech than it has to do with garnering political favor.
The AI Race Has Turned Into a Political Race
This is where investors need to start paying attention, because Anthropic's direction of growth is definitely evolving from a conventional software company into a machine of infrastructure.
The company’s latest funding round valued the business at about $380 billion, and we’ve all seen the reports circulating that Anthropic’s considering an IPO. Potential listing valuations have hit as high as $2 trillion, which would finally place Anthropic within firing distance of Nvidia (NVDA).
That creates a whole new set of problems and would give Anthropic more leverage as it seeks to weasel its way into public services. It also raises questions over who gets access to the most powerful AI models, how governments can regulate them, and how much power society has over the companies developing models that may end up having national security implications.
These aren’t questions that a team of engineers can answer. They’ll require input from politicians, economists, regulators, and an army of lawyers. That’s why Anthropic wanted to bag a former U.K. politician early, and they’re not the only AI company playing this game.
Former Chancellor of the Exchequer and Conservative politician George Osborne was named the new Managing Director and Head of OpenAI for Countries at OpenAI in December. That means he’s now responsible for helping the company try to bridge the gap between government AI strategies and where AI companies themselves want to be heading.
Then you’ve got former Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg from the Liberal Democrats. He’s now the President of Global Affairs for Meta (META), and the U.K. Government’s most recent AI Opportunities Adviser has just joined Anthropic as Managing Director for International Affairs.
Translation: The AI race is becoming a political one, and that matters beyond Britain.
Anthropic is already leaning in hard on governments across Asia and Europe, and lawmakers in Washington are becoming increasingly involved in the deployment of frontier AI. That’s why AI companies are trying to scoop up politicians like Rishi Sunak. It’s taken politicians a while to catch up, but governments are clearly going to be the most important force shaping the industry’s future.
These blurred boundaries between Silicon Valley and government do create some opportunities for investors. Companies like Anthropic are consolidating a competitive edge over smaller competitors by securing government contracts and embedding themselves in national AI strategies. That will only increase their value, but it also creates risk.
After all, AI companies are only going to face more and more scrutiny if they’re known to have influence over governments. That may lead to conflicts of interest, lobbying restrictions, and obtrusive antitrust investigations that will hamper growth later down the road.
That’s why Rishi Sunak’s cushy new appointment is about more than some former politician going off to find a second career.
It’s yet another sign that AI has outgrown Silicon Valley. If the revolution is going to continue at pace, the people building need to understand the mechanisms in Washington and Westminster just as much as they need to understand large language models and GPUs.
On the date of publication, Nash Riggins did not have (either directly or indirectly) positions in any of the securities mentioned in this article. All information and data in this article is solely for informational purposes. For more information please view the Barchart Disclosure Policy here.
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