The Trump administration announced Thursday that it would designate artificial intelligence company Anthropic as a supply chain risk.
“We have formally notified Anthropic leadership that the company and its products are considered a supply chain risk, effective immediately,” the Pentagon said in a statement.
A ‘supply chain risk’ label will force government contractors to stop using Anthropic’s AI chatbot Claude in their work with the US military.
“We do not believe this action is legally sound and we see no other option than to challenge it in court,” CEO Dario Amodei said in a statement.
However, companies can still use Anthropic’s AI for other projects unrelated to the Department of Defense, CEO Dario Amodei said in a statement.
What is the dispute between Anthropic and the Department of Defense about?
The Pentagon’s move comes a week after U.S. President Donald Trump and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth accused the company of posing a risk to national security.
The decision came after months of controversy over safety restrictions built into the Claude that limited its use in war gaming scenarios.
Anthropic moved ahead of its competitors in courting U.S. national security officials. But the company and the Department of Defense have been embroiled in a months-long dispute over how the military can use its technology on the battlefield.
Amodei said the Pentagon and Anthropic have discussed how Claude can continue to work with the military without dismantling its safeguards.
However, in a post to X late Thursday, the Pentagon’s chief technology officer, Emil Michael, said there are no active negotiations between the Pentagon and Anthropic.
What did the Department of Defense and Anthropology say?
“This is about the fundamental principle that the military can use technology for any lawful purpose. The military will not allow vendors to enter the chain of command by restricting the lawful use of critical capabilities and endangering our nation’s warfighters,” a Pentagon statement said.
Amodei countered that Anthropic’s narrow exceptions to limits on surveillance and autonomous weapons “relate to high-level areas of use and not to operational decision-making.”
Editor: Sean Sinico
