The U.S. Defense Department has begun developing an AI tool to replace Anthropic, TechCrunch reported on March 17.
Cameron Stanley, the department's chief digital and AI officer, said work is under way to apply multiple large language models in a government-owned environment and that it will soon be ready for operations.
A $200 million contract between Anthropic and the Defense Department collapsed amid conflict over the scope of military use of AI. Anthropic sought to restrict the use of AI for mass surveillance or autonomous weapons systems, but the Defense Department did not accept it. OpenAI instead signed a new agreement with the Defense Department, and Elon Musk's xAI also agreed to provide Grok for classified systems.
This makes it a natural next step for the Defense Department to gradually exclude Anthropic's technology. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth designated Anthropic as a "supply chain risk", a measure mainly applied to foreign hostile states. Anthropic is opposing the decision and is preparing legal action.
Chi-gyu Hwang
delight@d-today.co.kr