OpenAI gives Pentagon AI model access after Anthropic dust-up
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OpenAI chief executive Sam Altman said the Defence Department agreed with his company's principles and reflected them in its agreement with OpenAI.
PHOTO: AFP
SAN FRANCISCO – OpenAI has agreed to deploy its own artificial intelligence models within the Defence Department’s classified network after rival Anthropic saw its relationship with the Pentagon implode over surveillance and autonomous weapons concerns.
OpenAI chief executive Sam Altman said late on Feb 27 that he had reached an agreement with the department that reflects the company’s principles on prohibiting “domestic mass surveillance and human responsibility for the use of force, including for autonomous weapon systems”.
The start-up also built safeguards to ensure its models would behave as they should as part of the deployment, Mr Altman said in a post on the social media platform X.
OpenAI declined to comment on whether the firm’s services for the department would replace the work previously done by Anthropic.
The Defence Department did not immediately respond to a request for comment late Feb 27 night.
Just hours earlier, the Pentagon declared Anthropic a supply-chain risk
In a post on X, Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth outlined a six-month period for Anthropic to hand over AI services to another provider.
“America’s warfighters will never be held hostage by the ideological whims of Big Tech,” Mr Hegseth wrote. “This decision is final.”
His post appeared shortly after US President Donald Trump wrote on social media that he was ordering federal agencies to drop Anthropic.
Anthropic, which has stipulated that its products not be used for surveillance of Americans or to carry out strikes without human involvement, said on Feb 27 that “no amount of intimidation or punishment from the Department of War will change our position on mass domestic surveillance or fully autonomous weapons”.
The Pentagon offered terms to Anthropic earlier this week that incorporated some language that the company had proposed on surveillance and autonomy, a person familiar with the situation said, asking not to be identified because the talks were not public.
But in Anthropic’s opinion, they did not go far enough in ensuring the department wouldn’t be able to set aside any restrictions when it deems it necessary to do so, the person said.
OpenAI’s deal with the Pentagon threatens to widen the rift between the Trump administration and Anthropic, which has drawn strong support for its stance in Silicon Valley, where tech workers rallied to the company’s side and urged other major tech companies, including Amazon and Microsoft, to follow suit.
Mr Altman addressed some of the issues of surveillance and autonomous weapons in his post, saying the Defence Department agreed with its principles and reflected them in its agreement with OpenAI – asking the department “to offer these same terms to all AI companies, which in our opinion we think everyone should be willing to accept”.
Dr Dario Amodei, CEO of Anthropic, used to work at OpenAI and left in 2020 in part because of his concerns that the start-up was prioritising commercialisation and speed over safety.
OpenAI began as a non-profit and converted to a more traditional for-profit enterprise in 2025.
Though the company initially prohibited the use of its technology for military applications, OpenAI updated its policy to allow such uses in 2024.
The company has also dropped the word “safely” from its mission statement, which currently states that the company’s goal is to “ensure that artificial general intelligence – AI systems that are generally smarter than humans – benefits all of humanity”.
Both Anthropic and OpenAI are now increasingly turning their attention to profits as they push for initial public offerings as soon as 2026, tapping frenzied investor interest in AI.
Earlier on Feb 27, OpenAI announced it had raised US$110 billion (S$139 billion) in a deal that values the startup at US$730 billion, representing the ChatGPT maker’s largest funding round to date and bolstering its costly push to secure more computing power and talent for AI development.
Anthropic raised US$30 billion in a funding round earlier in February from some of OpenAI’s same investors.
Dr Amodei and Mr Altman have publicly clashed over the years.
Most recently, during an AI summit in New Delhi in February, the two men ended up standing next to each other with Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi, and noticeably did not hold hands while everyone else on stage did. BLOOMBERG
