Japan's megabanks set to access Anthropic's Mythos as soon as this month, Nikkei says

By Anton Bridge

TOKYO, May 13 (Reuters) - Japan's three largest banks are set to acquire access to Mythos, the artificial intelligence model developed by Anthropic, as soon as the end of May, the Nikkei business daily reported on Wednesday.

The banking arms of Mitsubishi UFJ Financial Group 8306.T, Sumitomo Mitsui Financial Group 8316.T, and Mizuho Financial Group 8411.T were likely to have been informed of the move by U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent at a meeting in Japan on Tuesday, the Nikkei said.

• This would mark the first time a Japanese company has been granted access to Mythos, the Nikkei said.

• Mythos is designed for defensive cybersecurity tasks but its capabilities have sparked fears about the threat to traditional software security as Anthropic said a preview had uncovered many major vulnerabilities affecting every major operating system and web browser.

• On Tuesday, Japanese Finance Minister Satsuki Katayama met Bessent and later said Japan would establish a public-private working group this week to address cybersecurity risks to the Japanese financial system posed by Mythos.

• The group's first meeting is expected to be held on Thursday.