- OpenAI has leased 88,000 square feet at Dublin’s Tropical Fruit Warehouse for its new EU headquarters and plans to add 250 jobs over the next two years.
- Anthropic expanded to Dublin four months earlier, tripling its office space and adding 200 roles in March.
- Both companies’ Dublin offices already hold significant regulatory responsibilities under GDPR, while enforcement details for the AI Act are still being established.
OpenAI is leasing 88,000 square feet at the Tropical Fruit Warehouse in Dublin’s docklands as its new European Union headquarters. It confirmed plans to add 250 jobs in Ireland over the next two years.
The announcement was made at an event attended by Taoiseach Micheál Martin. This follows Anthropic’s expansion in Dublin four months earlier and Bloomberg’s report that both companies were seeking more office space in the city.
The lease
The new positions will cover go-to-market, engineering, user operations, human resources, finance, privacy, legal, and corporate or secretarial functions. This expands on the more than 100 employees OpenAI currently has in Ireland. The company will relocate to the docklands site, developed by Iput Real Estate, in late 2026.
“We continue to invest and grow in Ireland as we meet increasing demand across the region. Our new EU headquarters reflects our long-term commitment, helping businesses, developers and communities benefit from our innovation,” says Emma Redmond, associate general counsel and head of OpenAI Ireland.
The building was initially intended for TikTok’s Dublin expansion before the company consolidated its Irish operations elsewhere, according to the Irish Times. Reactions on LinkedIn to the earlier office search were mixed. Some welcomed the new jobs, while others questioned Ireland’s tax incentives for US technology firms.
Anthropic got there first
OpenAI is not alone in expanding its presence in Dublin. Tech Funding News has tracked this trend since December 2025, when both companies were seeking about 25,000 square feet each.
Anthropic moved first in Dublin, confirming in March that it would expand its office sixfold to 21,000 square feet and add 200 roles across engineering, sales, finance, legal, and operations. This was due to significant year-on-year revenue growth across Europe, the Middle East, and Africa.
This expansion is part of a broader pattern, including Anthropic’s new Milan office and a 158,000-square-foot lease in London’s Knowledge Quarter. OpenAI’s 88,000-square-foot commitment in Dublin shows its ambitions in the city have grown substantially since December.
Why Dublin carries regulatory weight
Dublin has long attracted AI companies, with Google, Meta, Microsoft, and TikTok all establishing European headquarters there due to its English-speaking talent pool, favourable tax environment, and access to the EU market.
OpenAI Ireland Limited has served as the data controller for European Economic Area and Swiss users since 2024, leveraging GDPR’s one-stop-shop mechanism to designate Ireland’s Data Protection Commission as its lead supervisory authority, similar to Meta and TikTok.
Enforcement of the EU AI Act is still evolving, with responsibilities divided between national market surveillance authorities and the EU AI Office in Brussels, which directly oversees general-purpose models such as GPT and Claude.
As a result, Dublin’s DPC does not automatically assume comprehensive authority under the AI Act. Both companies are increasing their privacy and legal teams in Dublin, which will be important as AI Act enforcement structures are finalised over the next year.
OpenAI and Anthropic have collectively committed to 450 new roles in Dublin within a four-month period, in addition to the approximately 160 employees they already have in the city.
