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Anthropic is suing the Department of Defense (DOD), over the Pentagon’s decision to label the artificial intelligence company as a “supply chain risk.”
The New York Times reports that Anthropic filed two lawsuits on March 9 — one in a U.S. District Court in California and another in a District of Columbia Circuit appeals court. In its filing, the company accused the DOD of using the supply chain risk label to punish Anthropic for refusing to allow the Pentagon to use its AI for mass surveillance of Americans and autonomous lethal weapons.
“This is a necessary step to protect our business, our customers and our partners,” Anthropic said in a written statement. “We will continue to pursue every path toward resolution, including dialogue with the government.”
Receiving a supply chain risk designation essentially means that the U.S. government has determined that a company’s products or services pose a national security risk, and can’t be used in federal systems or by federal contractors. The Pentagon announced that Anthropic had been hit with the designation in early March after a proposed $200 million deal fell apart over demands from the DOD for unrestricted access to the company’s AI systems.
Shortly after that, President Donald Trump ordered all federal agencies to stop using Anthropic’s technology within the next six months, and then announced a separate deal with OpenAI. However, U.S. Central Command reportedly used Anthropic’s Claude AI tool during initial strikes against Iran in late February, and Anthropic has offered to open negotiations with the Pentagon back up while its lawsuits play out.
In addition, a coalition of tech companies — including Nvidia, Google, Microsoft, Apple and Amazon — sent a letter to Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth on March 5, voicing concern over Anthropic’s supply chain risk designation, while pointing out that the label has typically been reserved for foreign adversaries, rather than American firms.
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