Anthropic says its dispute with the Department of War centers on two requested exceptions: mass domestic surveillance of Americans and fully autonomous weapons. The company also says any formal designation should not affect commercial customers or non-DoW work.
OpenAI published details of its Department of War agreement on February 28, 2026 and added a clarifying update on March 2. The company says the deal is cloud-only, keeps humans in the loop, forbids domestic surveillance of U.S. persons, and bars autonomous-weapons direction and other high-stakes automated decisions.
Anthropic says a March 4 Department of War letter designates it as a supply chain risk, but argues the scope is narrow and will challenge the action in court.
OpenAI said on February 28, 2026 that it reached an agreement with the Department of War for classified AI deployments, and posted a March 2 update adding explicit domestic-surveillance limitation language. The company highlights cloud-only deployment, retained safety-stack control, and cleared personnel-in-the-loop safeguards.
Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei confirmed in a CBS interview that the company built custom Claude models for the military that are 1-2 generations ahead of consumer versions, deployed on classified cloud infrastructure.
OpenAI said on February 28, 2026 that it reached an agreement with the U.S. Department of War to deploy advanced AI systems in classified environments. In a follow-up post, the company said the arrangement uses a multi-layer safety approach and cloud-based deployment with cleared personnel in the loop.
In a February 26 statement, Anthropic said it will keep supporting U.S. defense and intelligence deployments but refuses two uses: mass domestic surveillance and fully autonomous weapons.
Anthropic said it will keep two contract guardrails with the U.S. Department of War despite pressure to allow any lawful use. The company drew lines around mass domestic surveillance and fully autonomous weapons while saying it remains available for broader national security workloads.