WASHINGTON, May 1 (Reuters) – The Pentagon said on Friday it had reached agreements with seven leading AI companies to deploy their advanced capabilities on the Defense Department’s classified networks.
SpaceX, OpenAI, Google, NVIDIA, Reflection, Microsoft and Amazon Web Services will be integrated into the Pentagon’s Impact Levels 6 and 7 network environments to “streamline data synthesis, elevate situational understanding, and augment warfighter decision-making in complex operational environments,” the Pentagon said in a statement.
“These agreements accelerate the transformation toward establishing the United States military as an AI-first fighting force and will strengthen our warfighters’ ability to maintain decision superiority across all domains of warfare”.
Another AI giant Anthropic has been in dispute with the Pentagon over guardrails for how the military could use its artificial intelligence tools, which led the Pentagon to label Anthropic a supply-chain risk last month, barring its use by the Pentagon and its contractors.
The tech news site the Information reported on Tuesday that Google had joined a growing list of firms to sign a deal enabling the Department of Defense to use its artificial intelligence models for classified work.
The agreement allows the Pentagon to use Google’s AI for “any lawful government purpose,” the report added, putting it alongside OpenAI and Elon Musk’s xAI, which also have deals to supply AI models for classified use.
(Reporting by Doina Chiacu; Editing by Kevin Liffey)
