Pentagon Awards OpenAI, Anthropic, xAI Contracts Worth $200 Mn

The Chief Digital and Artificial Intelligence Office (CDAO) has awarded contracts to OpenAI, Google, Anthropic, and Elon Musk's xAI, each valued at up to $200 million. This will enhance the integration of advanced AI technologies within the US Department of Defence (DoD), as announced by the government agency on July 15.

According to the release, this initiative will enable the department to utilise US frontier AI companies to create advanced AI workflows for various missions. By forming these partnerships, the DoD will enhance its capabilities and enable these companies to address critical national security needs more effectively.

The chief digital and AI officer, Doug Matty, said, “Leveraging commercially available solutions into an integrated capabilities approach will accelerate the use of advanced AI as part of our Joint mission essential tasks in our warfighting domain as well as intelligence, business, and enterprise information systems.”

The CDAO is providing access to the latest generative AI models for combatant commands, the office of the defence secretary, and the joint staff through the army’s enterprise LLM workspace, powered by Ask Sage. 

Broader access is also available via embedded AI models in DoD platforms, such as Advana, Maven Smart System, and Edge Data Mesh nodes, which integrate AI into existing workflows. Additionally, the DoD is partnering with the general services administration (GSA) to leverage government buying power for AI technologies and resources.

US government agencies have been increasing their reliance on AI, following a directive from the White House in April that encouraged the integration of AI. President Donald Trump has also taken steps to ease regulations on technology by undoing a 2023 executive order from the Biden administration, which aimed to mitigate AI risks through compulsory data disclosures.

[Correction: The previous version of this article incorrectly stated the contract value as $200 billion in the headline. It has been corrected to reflect the accurate figure of $200 million.]