An unusual court battle has begun after the United States formally designated the artificial intelligence (AI) company Anthropic as a supply chain risk. The Pentagon has designated Anthropic as a supply chain risk for the first time, indicating that the agency does not believe Anthropic is safe enough to use. Anthropic has taken steps to challenge the ruling in court after refusing to grant defense agencies unrestricted access to its AI technologies due to worries about mass surveillance and autonomous weaponry.
Chief executive Dario Amodei stated on Thursday night, “We do not think this action is legally sound, and we see no choice but to challenge it in court.” A senior Pentagon source stated earlier Thursday that the classification for supply chain risk was “effective immediately.” The defense department had sent Anthropic a letter the day before labeling it a danger, according to Amodei, who noted that the designation “has a narrow scope.”According to the law, the Secretary of War must employ the least restrictive methods to achieve the supply chain protection objective,” he added.The supply chain risk categorization does not (and cannot) restrict the use of Claude or business ties with Anthropic, even for Department of War contractors, provided those uses are not tied to their particular Department of War contracts.
The Department of Defense had recently held discussions with the AI developer. According to a person with knowledge of Anthropic who wished to remain anonymous, those discussions were unsuccessful, partly due to the public criticism of the company by President Donald Trump and other members of his administration.
After weeks of back and forth, Anthropic leadership believed last week that a resolution was imminent. According to the source familiar, Trump then announced on his Truth Social platform that he was ordering all federal departments to discontinue their use of Anthropic.
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