Pentagon and Anthropic Clash Over Military AI Use

The Pentagon is weighing whether to scale back or terminate its relationship with artificial intelligence company Anthropic, according to Axios, amid disagreements over how the U.S. military can deploy AI tools.

Defense officials are reportedly pressing several leading AI companies — including Anthropic, OpenAI, Google and xAI — to allow their models to be used for “all lawful purposes,” a category that includes weapons development, intelligence collection and battlefield operations.

Anthropic, however, has maintained firm restrictions in certain areas, particularly around mass surveillance of American citizens and fully autonomous weapons systems. Those limitations are said to be non-negotiable, creating friction after months of negotiations between the company and the Defense Department.

Reuters separately reported that the Pentagon has been pushing top AI developers to make their tools available on classified military networks without many of the standard safeguards typically applied to users.