Pentagon Awards Classified AI Compute Deals to OpenAI, Google, Microsoft, Amazon, Oracle, NVIDIA — Excludes Anthropic

The Pentagon on May 1, 2026 finalized AI compute and services agreements with eight major technology companies — OpenAI, Google, Microsoft, Amazon, Oracle, NVIDIA, SpaceX, and Reflection AI — that for the first time extend frontier-model use into classified Department of Defense environments, according to reporting from CNN, the Washington Post and Defense News. The contracts cover analysis, logistics, large-scale data processing and select agentic workloads on classified networks, with each vendor allotted distinct mission scopes. OpenAI separately confirmed its agreement with the rebranded “Department of War” on its corporate blog the same day.

Anthropic, the maker of Claude and one of the largest U.S. frontier-model labs, was deliberately excluded. The administration cited a supply-chain risk designation tied to a contract dispute over Anthropic’s refusal to allow military use of Claude for autonomous weapons targeting and mass surveillance. Anthropic sued the federal government earlier this year and won a preliminary injunction from a California federal judge, but the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals last month let the supply-chain designation stand, locking the company out of new defense contracts pending the underlying merits appeal. President Trump publicly said the administration would sever ties with Anthropic over the dispute.

The bundle marks one of the largest single-day AI procurements by any government and codifies a winner-takes-most pattern: providers willing to accept broad usage clauses get classified work, those that don’t are walled out. Google’s and OpenAI’s contracts include language stating the vendors do not intend their models to be used for domestic mass surveillance or autonomous weapons, but Defense News notes those clauses are policy commitments rather than enforceable contract terms. Internal Google employee pushback over the deal has surfaced this weekend, but Fortune’s reporting suggests company leverage to walk away has eroded sharply since the 2018 Project Maven cancellation. NVIDIA’s inclusion is also significant: the company’s Blackwell and Rubin GPUs will now be cleared for direct deployment inside DoD classified facilities.