Stop to Anthropic’s “safety-first” artificial intelligence in the United States supply chain.
On March 4, the U.S. Department of Defense officially labeled the AI company led by Dario Amodei as a risk to the American national security supply chain.
The “supply chain risk” label, confirmed in a statement by the company itself, takes immediate effect and prevents government contractors from using Anthropic’s technology in their activities for the U.S. military.
In this way, Washington aims to limit the use of a technology that, according to recent reports, the American armed forces would have used in military operations first in Venezuela and then in Iran.
The measure comes after the clash between the Trump administration and the company’s CEO, Dario Amodei. The latter has already stated that he considers the Pentagon’s decision “not legally valid” and therefore Anthropic is ready to “challenge it in court.”
All the details.
THE PENTAGON’S DECISION
The Pentagon announced on Thursday that it has “officially informed Anthropic’s leadership that the company and its products are considered a supply chain risk, effective immediately.” The designation represents a formal step that could force companies working with the federal government to stop using products developed by the company.
According to defense authorities, the decision reflects a fundamental operating principle. The Department of Defense note states that “this was a fundamental principle: the military must be able to use technology for all legitimate purposes. The military will not allow a supplier to insert itself into the chain of command by limiting the lawful use of a critical capability and putting our fighters at risk.”
AFTER THE SHOWDOWN BETWEEN THE TRUMP ADMINISTRATION AND ANTHROPIC
The decision comes almost a week after public accusations against the company by President Donald Trump and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth. On the eve of the military escalation with Iran, the two administration officials had announced possible punitive measures against the company.
The clash arose after Anthropic’s CEO, Dario Amodei, firmly established that Anthropic’s artificial intelligence would not be used for mass surveillance of Americans or for fully autonomous weapons, but the Pentagon believes it must have unlimited access for “all legitimate purposes.”
DARIO AMODEI’S POSITION
However, companies can still use Anthropic’s Claude in other projects unrelated to the Pentagon, CEO Dario Amodei wrote in the statement. He stated that the designation has “a limited scope” and that the restrictions apply only to the use of Anthropic’s AI in contracts with the Pentagon.
DEFENSE CONTRACTORS’ REACTIONS
The designation has already begun to have effects in the defense sector. Some military contractors were in fact ending relationships with Anthropic even before the official announcement.
Among them, Lockheed Martin stated that it “will follow the guidance of the President and the Department of War” and that it will turn to other large language model providers. The company also clarified that “we anticipate minimal impacts as Lockheed Martin does not rely on any single LLM provider for any part of our work.”
Previously, the same company had threatened legal action if the Pentagon proceeded with a designation described as “legally unfounded” and “never publicly applied to an American company.”
It is not yet clear whether the measure is intended to block the use of Anthropic technologies by all federal contractors or only those working directly with the Department of Defense.
CONCERNS FROM FORMER NATIONAL SECURITY OFFICIALS
The Pentagon’s decision has also raised criticism on the political and institutional level.
Before the official announcement, a group of former defense and national security officials had already sent a letter to U.S. lawmakers expressing “serious concern” about the possible designation.
Signatories include former CIA director Michael Hayden and retired leaders from the Air Force, Army, and Navy. The document states that “using this authority against a domestic American company represents a profound departure from its original purpose and creates a dangerous precedent.”
The same signatories emphasize that the regulatory tool was designed to “protect the United States from infiltration by foreign adversaries – from companies linked to Beijing or Moscow, not from American innovators operating transparently under the rule of law.” The letter also adds that “applying this tool to penalize a U.S. company that refuses to remove safeguards against mass domestic surveillance and fully autonomous weapons is a category error with consequences far beyond this controversy.”
IMPACTS ON THE ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE MARKET
Despite the loss of some partnerships in the defense sector, the company has seen a significant increase in user interest. In the week of the clash with the Pentagon, Anthropic reported a strong increase in downloads of the Claude chatbot.
According to data released by the company, the application surpassed one million new daily users and reached the top spot among artificial intelligence applications in more than twenty countries on Apple’s App Store, surpassing OpenAI’s ChatGPT and Google’s Gemini.
The controversy has also intensified the competition between Anthropic and OpenAI. On Friday, OpenAI announced a deal with the Pentagon that, according to available information, could effectively replace Anthropic as a provider of artificial intelligence technologies for some Department of Defense activities.
