Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth is pressuring Anthropic to give the military broader access to its artificial intelligence technology or lose its Pentagon contract.

Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth said the company that owns the AI assistant Claude would be punished unless it drops all ethical guidelines.

The OpenAI rival has options in its showdown with the Pentagon.

Anthropic, the AI company behind Claude, has refused Pentagon contract terms pushed by US defence secretary Pete Hegseth that would allow unrestricted military use of its AI. The company insists on explicit bans on mass domestic surveillance and fully autonomous lethal weapons,

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth has summoned Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei to the Pentagon on Tuesday morning for what sources say is likely to be a tense meeting over terms for military use of Anthropic's Claude.

The showdown took place during a meeting at the Pentagon between Mr Hegseth and Dario Amodei, Anthropic’s boss, whose credo is “Responsible AI ”. Mr Amodei was summoned to the Department of War ( DOW) because Anthropic is in a unique position.

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth gave Anthropic an ultimatum this week: Open its artificial intelligence technology for unrestricted military use by Friday, or risk losing its government contract

The Pentagon is demanding access to Anthropic’s AI technology, threatening to invoke the Defense Production Act if the company doesn’t comply.