The Pentagon said it has signed agreements with seven artificial-intelligence companies—including OpenAI, Google, Nvidia, Microsoft, Amazon Web Services, SpaceX and Reflection AI—to support classified military operations, part of a broader push to make the U.S. an “AI-first” fighting force. The deals permit “any lawful use” of the firms’ technologies and will integrate them into the Defense Department’s Impact Level 6 and 7 environments, which handle secret and top-secret data. The move sidelines Anthropic, which refused the lawful-use clause amid concerns about applications such as mass surveillance and autonomous lethal weapons; the Pentagon subsequently labeled the company a supply-chain risk, triggering legal action. The agreements come as the department budgets tens of billions of dollars for AI-enabled systems, including a $54 billion request for autonomous weapons development. Reflection AI, which aims to release open-source models to counter Chinese competitors such as DeepSeek, has drawn prominent backing and a reported multibillion-dollar valuation. The plan underscores the administration’s effort to speed AI deployment while stoking debate over safeguards, spending and the technology’s potential misuse.
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NIST AI Risk Management Framework
Defence Artificial Intelligence Strategy (UK Ministry of Defence)
