WASHINGTON

The Pentagon has threatened to designate artificial intelligence company Anthropic as a “supply chain risk” as it presses the firm to loosen restrictions on the military use of its Claude AI model, according to a report published Monday.

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth is close to severing the Pentagon’s relationship with Anthropic over the dispute, Axios reported. If the designation is imposed, all Defense Department contractors would be required to either stop doing business with Anthropic or end their ties with the Pentagon.

"It will be an enormous pain in the * to disentangle, and we are going to make sure they pay a price for forcing our hand like this," an anonymous Defense Department official told the online news outlet.

Claude is currently the only AI model authorized for use within the Defense Department’s classified systems and has been deployed in sensitive military operations, according to the report. The Pentagon and Anthropic have been negotiating the terms governing the model’s use for several months.

Anthropic is willing to relax some of its usage restrictions for the Pentagon but has drawn firm limits on the use of its software for mass surveillance of Americans and for the development of weapons capable of firing without human oversight, Axios reported. It was not clear which party provided details of the closed-door discussions.

The Pentagon is seeking assurances that it can use software from Anthropic and three other major technology firms — OpenAI, Google and xAI — for what it described as “all lawful purposes.”

"The Department of War’s relationship with Anthropic is being reviewed. Our nation requires that our partners be willing to help our warfighters win in any fight," Pentagon spokesperson Sean Parnell said in a statement provided to Anadolu.

"Ultimately, this is about our troops and the safety of the American people," he added.

Anthropic did not immediately respond to a request for comment. However, the company told Axios it is "having productive conversations, in good faith, with DoW on how to continue that work and get these new and complex issues right."

OpenAI, Google and xAI have agreed to lift some internal safeguards if the Pentagon opts to use their AI models, though only for unclassified activities, according to the report.