Artificial intelligence in U.S. defence saw a sudden shift on Friday. OpenAI agreed to supply its technology to the Pentagon hours after President Donald Trump blocked rival Anthropic.
OpenAI chief executive Sam Altman revealed the deal on X late Friday. “Tonight, we reached an agreement with the Department of War to deploy our models in their classified network,” Altman wrote. “In all of our interactions, the DoW displayed a deep respect for safety and a desire to partner to achieve the best possible outcome.”
Anthropic had been the first to deploy its Claude models in the Department of Defense’s secure networks since 2024, aiding logistics and threat analysis per Reuters. Contract talks failed over ethics. Anthropic sought bans on autonomous weapons and domestic surveillance. The military wanted broader use.
Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth then branded Anthropic a “Supply-Chain Risk to National Security,” a tag for foreign threats like Huawei under the 2020 National Defence Authorisation Act. Trump ordered all federal agencies to “immediately cease” its technology via Truth Social.
Altman noted OpenAI shares Anthropic’s ethical lines in a Thursday employee memo. “Two of our most important safety principles are prohibitions on domestic mass surveillance and human responsibility for the use of force, including for autonomous weapon systems,” Altman wrote. “The DoW agrees with these principles, reflects them in law and policy, and we put them into our agreement.”
Critics have long faulted Anthropic’s safety emphasis as excessive. OpenAI promised safeguards and on-site support. “We are asking the DoW to offer these same terms to all AI companies, which in our opinion we think everyone should be willing to accept,” Altman wrote.
“We have expressed our strong desire to see things de-escalate away from legal and governmental actions and towards reasonable agreements.”
Anthropic called itself “deeply saddened” by the Pentagon’s decision to label the company a supply chain risk. It plans a court challenge.