The US defence department said it had reached fresh deals with Nvidia, Microsoft, Reflection AI and Amazon Web Services for the “lawful operational use” of their technology on classified networks.
The set-up mirrors earlier agreements with SpaceX, OpenAI and Google.
The scramble follows a public bust-up with Anthropic, whose Claude model was previously the only one used in classified settings, including in the war against Iran and the capture of Venezuelan leader Nicolás Maduro.
Anthropic chief executive Dario Amodei has said he refused to sign a defence department deal unless the government guaranteed Anthropic’s tools would not be used for mass domestic surveillance and lethal autonomous weapons.
The seven agreements give the Pentagon access to proprietary and closed models via SpaceX, OpenAI, and Google, while Nvidia and Reflection AI bring open-source models to the party. Microsoft and AWS are handling the AI plumbing and infrastructure.
Pentagon chief technology officer Emil Michael told CNBC that “open source is a brand new vector for us, which is very important because Chinese open source models have infiltrated a lot of different companies. We want to have an American alternative to that.”
On Monday, Google signed its Pentagon deal as more than 560 employees sent an open letter to chief executive Sundar Pichai urging him to walk away from talks. They warned the kit could be used in “inhumane or extremely harmful ways”.
Accelerating the spread of AI across the military, including on the battlefield, has been a priority for Pentagon Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth.
“These agreements accelerate the transformation toward establishing the United States military as an AI-first fighting force and will strengthen our warfighters’ ability to maintain decision superiority across all domains of warfare,” the Pentagon said.
The US attempt to designate Anthropic as a supply chain risk in late February, just one day before the start of the US war on Iran, was an extraordinary move against an American company.
“Anthropic is run by an ideological lunatic” who should not have “decision-making over what we do”, Hegseth told Congress.
US President Donald Trump has banned Anthropic from all government contracts, while the company and the Pentagon are locked in legal battles.
Even so, Amodei met White House chief of staff Susie Wiles last month as the US government pushed for access to Anthropic’s new Mythos model, which has shown strong advances in breaking cyber defences.
Michael said that “the Mythos issue is a separate national security moment where we have to make sure that our networks are hardened up, because that model has capabilities that are particular to finding cyber vulnerabilities and patching them.”
