Pentagon Announces AI Deals with 7 Major Tech Companies for Classified Military Networks
The U.S. Department of Defense announced Friday that it has signed agreements with seven leading AI companies—including OpenAI, Google, Microsoft, Amazon Web Services, Nvidia, SpaceX, and Reflection—to deploy their AI systems on classified military networks for operational use. The move is part of the Pentagon's effort to build an AI-first military while notably excluding Anthropic, which refused to remove safety guardrails for autonomous weapons.
Pentagon Expands AI Partnerships for Defense Operations
The Pentagon announced new agreements with seven leading artificial intelligence developers on Friday, with those companies set to support classified workflows in military operations, including SpaceX, OpenAI, Google, NVIDIA, Reflection, Microsoft, and Amazon Web Services, selected to deploy their AI products in the Department of Defense's Impact Level 6 and Impact Level 7 network environments.
Key Details
Scope: The effort will support the department's internal platform, GenAI.mil, launched in December with Google Gemini, adding that more than 1.3 million personnel have used it to generate tens of millions of prompts and deploy hundreds of thousands of AI agents in five months.
Anthropic Exclusion: Anthropic is not included, which the Trump administration has blacklisted over Anthropic's insistence that the Pentagon include certain safety guardrails for the government's use of AI in warfare. The announcement follows tensions that exploded between another AI company, Anthropic, and the Pentagon in late February after the company refused to allow its products to be used for autonomous weapons and surveillance of Americans, with the Pentagon subsequently designating Anthropic a supply chain risk.
Military Goals: The deals have a specific focus on streamlining data synthesis, improving warfighter decision-making and elevating situational understanding and awareness.
Vendor Diversity: The press release said these new contracts are part of the Pentagon's ongoing efforts to "build an architecture that prevents AI vendor lock and ensures long-term flexibility for the Joint Force" by making a diverse range of AI tools available for Defense employees.
Ongoing Legal Battle
Anthropic sued the Trump administration in response, and a federal judge in California last month blocked the government's effort. Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei visited the White House last month for a meeting with Chief of Staff Susie Wiles after Anthropic unveiled its Mythos tool that can identify cybersecurity threats.