Appeals Court Lets the Pentagon Designate Anthropic a Supply Chain Risk
wired ·
A divided federal appeals court in Washington, DC, has upheld the Pentagon's designation of Anthropic as a supply chain risk, rejecting the AI lab's legal challenge. The majority opinion stated that the Department of Defense had ample statutory support for concluding that integrating Claude into military systems posed a national security threat. This ruling allows the ban on Anthropic's models to remain in place indefinitely, despite a separate judge in San Francisco previously overturning a different label. Anthropic executives maintain that their refusal to allow government use of their AI for autonomous weapons or surveillance was mischaracterized by the Trump administration. While the company claims lost revenue from the designation, it continues to report strong sales and is preparing for a potential initial public offering later this year. The Pentagon is currently replacing Claude with alternatives such as Grok, Gemini, and GPT, despite some ethical objections from employees at those tech firms. Anthropic is now considering further appeals to a broader panel of the DC Circuit Court or the US Supreme Court. This decision ensures that the government can continue to exclude Anthropic from its supply chain ahead of the company's expected IPO.
wired