Anthropic Sues Pentagon over Supply Chain Risk Label

Anthropic has kept its promise of taking the US Department of Defense to court after the agency labelled the firm a ‘national security supply-chain risk’ last week, escalating a dispute over the military use of AI systems.

The maker of the Claude chatbot filed two legal complaints on March 9 in federal courts in California and Washington, DC, following weeks of tension between the company and the Pentagon over access to its AI models.

At the centre of the dispute is Anthropic’s refusal to allow its systems to be used for two specific purposes: mass surveillance of Americans and fully autonomous weapons capable of selecting and firing on targets without human oversight.

The company has repeatedly said that those uses cross ethical and safety boundaries that it is not prepared to accept.

The supply-chain risk label, typically reserved for companies linked to foreign adversaries, requires any contractor working with the Pentagon to certify that it does not use Anthropic’s models.

While some private sector partners continue to work with the AI company, the designation threatens to effectively cut it off from large parts of the US government market.

Anthropic described the move as “unprecedented and unlawful” in a lawsuit filed in federal court in San Francisco, accusing the administration of retaliating against the company for publicly raising concerns about AI safety.

“The Constitution does not allow the government to wield its enormous power to punish a company for its protected speech,” the complaint states.

According to the filing, the “protected speech” in question refers to Anthropic’s public position that current AI systems remain unsuitable for autonomous weapons and mass surveillance programmes.

The legal challenge also comes amid increasingly sharp political criticism of the company. Senior officials, including US President Donald Trump and Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth, have publicly attacked Anthropic and its chief executive, Dario Amodei, describing the company’s stance on AI safety as “woke” and “radical”.

Anthropic argues that while the government is free to disagree with its views or decline to use its products, it cannot deploy state power to punish a company for expressing them.

The company also claims the Pentagon failed to follow the procedures required by federal procurement law before issuing the supply-chain risk designation.

Under existing statutes, agencies must typically conduct a formal risk assessment, notify the targeted company and allow it to respond, issue a written national security determination, and inform Congress before excluding a vendor from federal supply chains.

Anthropic says none of these steps was properly followed.

“Defendants are seeking to destroy the economic value created by one of the world’s fastest-growing private companies,” the lawsuit states. “The challenged actions inflict immediate and irreparable harm on Anthropic; on others whose speech will be chilled; on those benefiting from the economic value the company can continue to create; and on a global public that deserves robust dialogue and debate on what AI means for warfare and surveillance.”

As part of its filing, Anthropic has asked the court to immediately suspend the Pentagon’s designation while the legal case proceeds, and ultimately invalidate the government’s decision altogether.

“Seeking judicial review does not change our longstanding commitment to harnessing AI to protect our national security, but this is a necessary step to protect our business, our customers and our partners,” an Anthropic spokesperson said in a statement.

Alongside the California lawsuit, Anthropic also filed a separate complaint in the US Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit. Federal procurement law allows companies to challenge supply-chain risk designations through that court.

The petition asks judges to review and overturn the Defense Department’s decision, arguing that the designation was unlawful, retaliatory and improperly executed under federal procurement rules.