Pentagon opens classified AI deployments to OpenAI, Google, Microsoft, AWS, Nvidia

The U.S. Department of Defense has inked agreements with OpenAI, Google, Microsoft, Amazon Web Services, and Nvidia to deploy AI models on classified defense networks for lawful operational use, marking the first major government push to integrate frontier LLMs into secure national-security infrastructure.

The move signals that defense agencies view proprietary AI models as critical for warfare and intelligence operations, effectively opening a new contract revenue stream for the big-five AI cloud providers while notably excluding Anthropic from initial classified deployments.