US government increases AI suppliers and rethinks Anthropic’s role

The US administration has added four more AI companies to its roster of favoured suppliers, with the Pentagon signing agreements with Microsoft, Reflection AI (which has yet to release a publicly-available model), Amazon, and Nvidia that mean their products can be used on classified operations. The companies join OpenAI, xAI, and Google as companies that the Department for Defense can deploy “for any lawful use.”

The phrase “any lawful use” formed the centre of the recent disagreement between Anthropic AI and the US administration, with CEO Darius Amodei claiming that it would let the US government use Anthropic technology to subject the American civilian population to surveillance, and produce autonomous weapons, areas of Anthropic’s use that he wanted walled off. The Pentagon cancelled a $200 million contract with the company, a decision which Anthropic swiftly took to court, claiming millions in lost revenues from the government and others influenced by the government’s decision. The Trump administration termed the company a “supply chain risk”, the first time a US-based company had ever been given such a status. Ensuing statements from government sources described Anthropic as a “woke” company.

The Pentagon’s statement on its new agreements reads, “The Department will continue to build an architecture that prevents AI vendor lock-in and ensures long-term flexibility for the Joint force.” The technologies will “give warfighters the tools they need to act with confidence and safeguard the nation against any threat.” The AIs will be used for ‘Impact Levels’ six (secret data) and seven (the most highly-classified materials) use-cases, helping create what the statement describes as an “AI-first fighting force”.

The Pentagon’s current use of generative AI is largely confined to non-classified tasks carried out inside the various defence departments, such as working on document drafting and summary, and research. The new suppliers will help defence forces “streamline data synthesis” too, but also “elevate situational understanding, and augment warfighter decision-making in complex operational environments.” It’s not clear whether those descriptions include domestic deployments inside US borders.

The expansion of the raft of AI suppliers to the US military and security forces means it will become more immune to apparent changes of heart by individual vendors affecting military and security operations. By broadening their technological base, the personal whims of individual company leaders become less relevant. Google and Amazon have in the past fired employees for protesting against their companies’ technology being used in weaponry and warfare.

Anthropic’s Claude AI had been used on classified material as part of Palantir’s Maven toolset, a role which the most recent signees may replace. However, the company’s Mythos model is reportedly in use currently by the National Security Agency in the context of the platform’s purported cyber warfare and defence abilities. Worldwide, Anthropic’s Mythos is currently under assessment by 40 organisations, of which only 12 have been named, with the UK’s MI5 and the US NSA thought to be among the remaining 28.

According to Axios, the US administration may be walking back on its most recent public stance on Anthropic. The website said it had a source in the White House who stated the administration was trying to find ways to “save face and bring ’em back in.” Anthropic’s Claude coding model is allegedly still in use by US government security organisations, and has been throughout recent events.

According to the White House, the US government “continues to proactively engage across government and industry to protect our country and the American people, including by working with frontier AI labs.”

(Image source: “BEST OF THE MARINE CORPS – May 2006 – Defense Visual Information Center” by expertinfantry is licensed under CC BY 2.0. Licence.)

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