A US judge blocked the Pentagon’s attempt to designate Anthropic a supply-chain risk, a major victory for the AI firm in its legal wranglings with Washington. The Department of Defense attempted to blacklist Anthropic in February after the company refused to remove restrictions on its AI models being used for autonomous weapons and domestic surveillance, a move widely seen as punitive.
But the government has continued to use Anthropic’s products and to collaborate with it on AI oversight, which the California judge said was not “consistent with a genuine fear that Anthropic is a saboteur.” The ruling does not force the Pentagon to use Anthropic’s products, but government contractors and agencies cannot be barred from using them if they choose.