WASHINGTON, May 1 (Reuters) – The Pentagon said on Friday it had reached agreements with seven AI companies to deploy their advanced capabilities on the Defense Department’s classified networks as it seeks to broaden the range of AI providers working across the military.
The statement notably excludes Anthropic, which has been in dispute with the Pentagon over guardrails for the use of its artificial intelligence tools by the military.
The Pentagon labeled the AI startup, which is widely used across the Department of Defense, a supply-chain risk earlier this year, barring its use by the Pentagon and its contractors.
SpaceX, OpenAI, Google , NVIDIA, Reflection, Microsoft and Amazon Web Services , several of which already work with the Pentagon, will be integrated into its Impact Levels 6 and 7 network environments giving more of the military access to their products, the Pentagon said in a statement.
By expanding the AI services offered to troops, who use it for planning, logistics, targeting and a bevy of other reasons to streamline huge operations and perform more quickly, the Pentagon said in its statement it will avoid “vendor lock”, a likely nod to its overdependence on Anthropic.
Pentagon staffers, former officials and IT contractors who work closely with the U.S. military have told Reuters they were reluctant to give up Anthropic’s AI tools, which they view as superior to alternatives, despite orders to remove them over the next six months.
AI has become increasingly important for the U.S. military. The Pentagon’s main AI platform GenAI.mil has been used by over 1.3 million Defense Department personnel, the agency noted in its release, after five months of operation.
Google, which is already used within the Pentagon, has signed a deal enabling the Department of Defense to use its artificial intelligence models for classified work, a source told Reuters earlier this week.
ANTHROPIC STILL A ‘RISK’
Defense Department Chief Technology Officer Emil Michael on Friday told CNBC that Anthropic remained a supply-chain risk, but that Mythos, the company’s artificial intelligence model with advanced cyber capabilities that created a stir among U.S. officials and corporate America over its ability to supercharge hackers, was a “separate national security moment.”
While numerous companies and public and private entities have gained access to a Mythos preview product to help secure their IT infrastructure against future cyberattacks, it is not clear if the Pentagon is part of that program.
U.S. President Donald Trump said last week that Anthropic was “shaping up” in the eyes of his administration, opening the door for the AI company to reverse its blacklisting at the Pentagon.
Still, the falling out reinforced the need to diversify the supply of AI tools for the military, opening new opportunities for small defense industry artificial intelligence startups.
(Reporting by Doina Chiacu and Chris Sanders; Editing by Kevin Liffey, Chizu Nomiyama and Tomasz Janowski)
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