Seven AI Firms Join Pentagon for Classified Work

The United States Department of Defense has announced a new agreement with seven Artificial Intelligence companies to use their advanced technologies for its classified networks, though the Pentagon said on Friday that it had reached agreements with SpaceX, OpenAI, Google, Nvidia, Reflection, Microsoft, and Amazon Web Services.

The announcement is the latest instance of closer integration between the Pentagon and major technology companies. The agreements aim to accelerate the transformation toward establishing the United States military as an AI-first fighting force, according to the Pentagon.

“These agreements accelerate the transformation toward establishing the United States military as an AI-first fighting force and will strengthen our warfighters’ ability to maintain decision superiority across all domains of warfare,” the Pentagon said in a statement.

Anthropic Absent Amid Legal Dispute

Noticeably absent from the Pentagon’s list was Anthropic, which had a major fallout with the Pentagon after pushing back on pressure to provide unrestricted access to its Claude AI programme for “all lawful use.” The appeal raised concerns over Claude’s possible uses in government mass surveillance and autonomous weapons systems. The Pentagon, in turn, labelled the company a “supply chain risk.”

The two sides have since been locked in a protracted court battle, although there have been some signs of detente. In particular, there has been an increasing desire from the administration to access Anthropic’s powerful new Mythos AI model, which is seen as a potentially significant tool in both cyber attacks and cyber defence.

The Pentagon’s agreements with OpenAI and Google had previously been confirmed, as had a deal with Elon Musk’s xAI. The three companies had agreed to the Pentagon’s “all lawful use” provision as part of those agreements.

“Warfighters, civilians and contractors are putting these capabilities to practical use right now, cutting many tasks from months to days,” the Pentagon said, adding that over 1.3 million department personnel use its official AI platform, GenAI.mil.

Concerns Over AI Use and Spending

The US government’s use of AI has gained increasing scrutiny amid its mass deportation campaign. Rights groups say the technology company Palantir has been used to collect real-time data on potential Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) targets, including pro-Palestine advocates.

Amid the US-Israel war in Iran, questions have been raised over how AI targeting systems are being used. The Pentagon has said it has hit 13,000 targets since beginning attacks on February 28. At least 3,375 people have been killed in Iran, including at least 170 people, mostly children, in an apparent US Tomahawk strike on a girls’ school in Minab. The Pentagon has said it is still investigating.

Speaking during a Senate committee hearing on Thursday, US Senator Kirsten Gillibrand questioned Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth on civilian harm oversight and the use of AI. Hegseth responded that “no military, no country works harder at every echelon to ensure they protect civilian lives than the United States military, and that is an ironclad commitment that we make, no matter how…no matter what system we use.”

The US Department of Defense is budgeting tens of billions of dollars for numerous technology firms’ cutting edge programs related to intelligence, drone warfare, classified and unclassified information networks and much more. It has requested $54 billion for the development of autonomous weapons alone. How each individual company’s technology would be deployed was not specified.

One of the firms, Reflection AI, has yet to release a publicly available model. The two-year-old company’s goal is to create open-source models as a counter to Chinese AI firms such as DeepSeek. It is seeking a $25 billion valuation, the Wall Street Journal reported in March, and has received funding from Nvidia as well as 1789 Capital, the venture fund where Donald Trump Jr is a partner.

The plans have sparked disputes with some AI firms and controversy and concerns over public spending, global cyber security and the capacity for such technology to be used for domestic surveillance.

In January, Pete Hegseth, the secretary of defense, revealed a new “AI acceleration strategy” at the Pentagon that he said will “unleash experimentation, eliminate bureaucratic barriers, focus on investments, and demonstrate the execution approach needed to ensure we lead in military AI and that it grows more dominant into the future.”

On Friday, the department announced that the companies mentioned will be integrated into what it called the Pentagon’s “Impact Levels 6 and 7” network environments to “cut data synthesis, elevate situational understanding, and augment warfighter decision-making in complex operational environments,” according to a federal statement.

Anthropic has been in dispute with the Pentagon over guardrails for how the military could use its artificial intelligence tools. The AI giant objected to the lawful use clause in its contract over concerns its technology might be used for domestic mass surveillance or fully autonomous lethal weapons.