Anthropic said Thursday that the Defense Department has designated it a threat to national security, a striking move that bans it from doing business with the U.S. military and could send shock waves through America’s AI industry.
The designation, which the company said it received Wednesday and specifically labels Anthropic a “supply-chain risk to national security,” requires the Pentagon and its contractors to stop using Anthropic’s AI services for all defense business.
Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth telegraphed the move Friday evening on X.
It comes after months of increasingly tense negotiations over how the military should be able to use Anthropic’s Claude AI systems. Though it is a relatively new technology, generative AI models like Claude have quickly been embraced by the Trump administration, including for military use.
For the past several months, the Pentagon has been negotiating new contract terms with Anthropic, along with other leading American AI companies, to allow
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