In Brief

Posted:

11:20 AM PDT · March 17, 2026

Image Credits:Celal Gunes/Anadolu Agency / Getty Images

- Amanda Silberling

The Pentagon is developing alternatives to Anthropic, report says

After their dramatic falling-out, it doesn’t seem as though Anthropic and the Pentagon are getting back together.

Instead, the Pentagon is building tools to replace Anthropic’s AI, according to a Bloomberg conversation with Cameron Stanley, the chief digital and AI officer at the Pentagon.

“The Department is actively pursuing multiple LLMs into the appropriate government-owned environments,” he said. “Engineering work has begun on these LLMs, and we expect to have them available for operational use very soon.”

Anthropic’s $200 million contract with the Department of Defense (DOD) broke down over the last several weeks after the two parties failed to come to an agreement over the degree to which the military could obtain unrestricted access to Anthropic’s AI.

While Anthropic sought to include a contractual clause that prohibits the Pentagon from using its AI for mass surveillance of Americans or to deploy weapons that can fire without human intervention, the Pentagon didn’t budge. Instead, OpenAI swooped in and made its own agreement with the Pentagon. The Department of Defense — known under the Trump administration as the Department of War — also signed an agreement with Elon Musk’s xAI to use Grok in classified systems.

It makes sense, then, why the Pentagon would be working on phasing Anthropic’s technology out of its workflows. While some reports said there was a small possibility that Anthropic would reconcile with the Pentagon, this news suggests that the government is preparing to forge ahead without them.

In fact, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth has declared Anthropic a supply-chain risk, a designation usually reserved for foreign adversaries, which bars companies that work with the Pentagon from working with Anthropic as well. Anthropic is challenging this designation in court.

Topics

AI, Anthropic, Elon Musk, Government & Policy, Grok, In Brief, OpenAI, pentagon

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