Anthropic Vows Court Fight In Pentagon Row

 WASHINGTON, United States: Anthropic chief executive Dario Amodei has said the company has "no choice" but to challenge in court the Pentagon's formal designation of the artificial intelligence firm as a risk to US national security.

The CEO, writing in a blog post on Thursday, insisted however that the ruling's practical scope is narrower than initially suggested, signaling that the designation would not have a catastrophic effect on the company.

Amodei said the Department of War -- the name preferred by the Trump administration for the Department of Defense -- confirmed in a letter that Anthropic and its products, including its widely-used Claude AI model, have been deemed a supply chain risk.

It is the first time a US company has ever been publicly given such a designation, a label typically reserved for organizations that operate within foreign adversaries, like Chinese tech company Huawei.

Amodei, in his blog post, said the company disputes the legal basis of the action but sought to reassure customers.

"It plainly applies only to the use of Claude by customers as a direct part of contracts with the Department of War, not all use of Claude by customers who have such contracts," he wrote.

The designation will require defense vendors and contractors to certify that they don't use Anthropic's models in their work with the Pentagon.

But Amodei argued that under the relevant statute, the intention is "to protect the government rather than to punish a supplier" and requires the Department of Defense to use "the least restrictive means necessary."

Microsoft, one of Anthropic's biggest partners, agreed with that reading, telling US media its lawyers studied the designation and concluded that Anthropic products, including Claude, can remain available to its customers other than the Department of War.