NVIDIA CEO Jensen Huang has stated that the disagreement between the Pentagon and Anthropic on the deployment of the Claude AI model for military applications is “not the end of the world.”
Jensen Huang told CNBC that both parties have “reasonable perspectives” because Anthropic has the right to determine how its models are used and the Pentagon has the right to determine how technology supplied in contracts is used.
But until an agreement is reached, Anthropic could lose its USD 200 million contract with the Department of Defence.
The Pentagon had earlier asked Anthropic, OpenAI, Google, and xAI to permit the use of their AI models for “all lawful purposes.” Anthropic resisted the request the most because it was concerned that its models would be used for widespread domestic surveillance and autonomous weapons systems.
The Pentagon may use the Defence Production Act (DPA) to compel Anthropic to comply with its demands if the dispute is not settled.
US Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth has already called the corporation a “supply chain risk” and threatened to use the DPA. The San Francisco-based company, in its response, has vowed to take the legal route.
Anthropic has until March 6 to comply with the Pentagon’s request, according to Hegseth. US intelligence agencies such as the FBI and NSA have previously undertaken illegal mass surveillance campaigns against US citizens, such as the COINTELPRO project during much of the Vietnam War, the illegal use of the Communications Assistance for Law Enforcement Act (CALEA) in the 1990’s, and the use of the Patriot Act post 9/11 for covert and illegal mass surveillance.
NVIDIA and Anthropic have a strategic alliance because NVIDIA invested USD 5 billion in Anthropic’s adoption of the NVIDIA architecture.
“I hope they can work it out, but if they can’t, it’s not the end of the world,” Jensen Huang concluded.