Tech
Anthropic vs. the Pentagon: What’s actually at stake?
The past two weeks have been defined by a clash between Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth as the two battle over the military’s use of AI.
Anthropic refuses to allow its AI models to be used for mass surveillance of Americans or for fully autonomous weapons that conduct strikes without human input. At the same time, Secretary Hegseth has argued the Department of Defense shouldn’t be limited by the rules of a vendor, arguing any “lawful use” of the technology should be permitted.
On Thursday, Amodei publicly signaled that Anthropic isn’t backing down — despite threats that his company could be designated as a supply chain risk as a result. But with the news cycle moving fast, it’s worth revisiting exactly what’s at stake in the fight.
At its core, this fight is about who controls powerful AI systems — the companies that build them, or the government that wants to deploy them.
What is Anthropic worried about?
As we said above, Anthropic doesn’t want its AI models to be used for mass surveillance of Americans or for autonomous weapons with no humans in the loop for targeting and firing decisions. Traditional defense contractors typically have little say in how their products will be used, but Anthropic has argued from its inception that AI technology poses unique risks and therefore requires unique safeguards. From the company’s perspective, the question is how to maintain those safeguards when the technology is being used by the military.
The U.S. military already relies on highly automated systems, some of which are lethal. The decision to use lethal force has historically been left to humans, but there are few legal restrictions on military use of autonomous weapons. The DoD doesn’t categorically ban fully autonomous weapons systems. According to a 2023 DOD directive, AI systems can select and engage targets without human intervention, as long as they meet certain standards and pass review by senior defense officials.
That’s precisely what makes Anthropic nervous. Military technology is secretive by nature, so if the U.S. military were taking steps to automate lethal decision-making, we might not know about it until it was operational. And if it used Anthropic’s models, it could count as “lawful use.”
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Anthropic’s position isn’t that such uses should be permanently off the table. It’s that its models aren’t capable enough to support them safely yet. Imagine an autonomous system misidentifying a target, escalating a conflict without human authorization, or making a split-second lethal decision that no one can reverse. Put a less-capable AI in charge of weapons, and you get a very fast, very confident machine that’s bad at making high-stakes calls.
AI also has the power to supercharge lawful surveillance of American citizens to a concerning degree. Under current U.S. laws, surveillance of American citizens is already possible, whether through collection of texts, emails, and other communication. AI changes the equation by enabling automated large-scale pattern detection, entity resolution across datasets, predictive risk scoring, and continuous behavioral analysis.
What does the Pentagon want?
The Pentagon’s argument is that it should be able to deploy Anthropic’s technology for any lawful use it deems necessary, rather than be limited by Anthropic’s internal policies on things like autonomous weapons or surveillance.
More specifically, Secretary Hegseth has argued the Department of Defense shouldn’t be limited by the rules of a vendor and that it would engage in “lawful use” of the technology.
Sean Parnell, the Pentagon’s chief spokesperson, said in a Thursday X post that the department has no interest in conducting mass domestic surveillance or deploying autonomous weapons.
“Here’s what we’re asking: Allow the Pentagon to use Anthropic’s model for all lawful purposes,” Parnell said. “This is a simple, common-sense request that will prevent Anthropic from jeopardizing critical military operations and potentially putting our warfighters at risk. We will not let ANY company dictate the terms regarding how we make operational decisions.”
He added that Anthropic has until 5:01 p.m. ET on Friday to decide. “Otherwise, we will terminate our partnership with Anthropic and deem them a supply chain risk for DOW,” he said.
Despite the DoD’s stance that it simply doesn’t believe it should be limited by a corporation’s usage policies, Secretary Hegseth’s concerns about Anthropic have at times seemed connected to cultural grievance. In a speech at SpaceX and xAI offices in January, Hegseth railed against “woke AI” in a speech that some saw as a preview of his feud with Anthropic.
“Department of War AI will not be woke,” Hegseth said. “We’re building war-ready weapons and systems, not chatbots for an Ivy League faculty lounge.”
So what now?
The Pentagon has threatened to either declare Anthropic a “supply chain risk” — which effectively blacklists Anthropic from doing business with the government — or invoke the Defense Production Act (DPA) to force the company to tailor its model to the military’s needs. Hegseth has given Anthropic until 5:01 p.m. on Friday to respond. But with the deadline approaching, it’s anyone’s guess whether the Pentagon will make good on its threat.
This is not a fight either party can easily walk away from. Sachin Seth, a VC at Trousdale Ventures who focuses on defense tech, says a supply chain risk label for Anthropic could mean “lights out” for the company.
However, he said, if Anthropic is dropped from the DoD, it could be a national security issue.
“[The Department] would have to wait six to 12 months for either OpenAI or xAI to catch up,” Seth told TechCrunch. “That leaves a window of up to a year where they might be working from not the best model, but the second or third best.”
xAI is gearing up to become classified-ready and replace Anthropic, and it’s fair to say given owner Elon Musk’s rhetoric on the matter that the company would have no problem giving the DoD total control over its technology. Recent reports indicate that OpenAI may stick to the same red lines as Anthropic.
Tech
Exclusive: Google deepens Thinking Machines Lab ties with new multi-billion-dollar deal
Former OpenAI executive Mira Murati’s startup, Thinking Machines Lab, has signed a new multi-billion-dollar agreement to expand its use of Google Cloud’s AI infrastructure, including systems powered by Nvidia’s latest GPUs, TechCrunch has exclusively learned.
The deal is valued in the single-digit billions, according to a source familiar with the matter, and includes access to Google’s latest AI systems built atop Nvidia’s new GB300 chips, alongside infrastructure services to support model training and deployment.
Google has been actively striking a number of cloud deals with AI developers as it aims to wrap together its AI computing offerings with other cloud services like storage, a Kubernetes engine, and Spanner, its database product. Earlier this month, Anthropic signed an agreement with Google and Broadcom for multiple gigawatts of tensor processing unit (TPUs) capacity (these are Google’s custom-designed AI chips for machine learning workloads).
But the competition is fierce. Just this week, Anthropic also signed a new agreement with Amazon to secure up to 5 gigawatts of capacity for training and deploying Claude.
Earlier this year, Thinking Machines partnered with Nvidia in a deal that included an investment from the chipmaker. But this is the first time the lab has struck a deal with a cloud services provider. The deal is not exclusive, so Thinking Machines may use multiple cloud providers over time, but it’s still a sign that Google is looking to lock in fast-growing frontier labs early.
Murati left her job as OpenAI’s chief technologist and founded Thinking Machines in February 2025. The company, which soon afterwards raised a $2 billion seed round at a $12 billion valuation, has remained highly secretive, but launched its first product in October. Dubbed Tinker, it’s a tool that automates the creation of custom frontier AI models.
Wednesday’s deal provided some insight into what Thinking Machines is developing. In a press release, Google noted that it can support the startup’s reinforcement learning workloads, which Tinker’s architecture relies on. Reinforcement learning is a training approach that has underpinned recent breakthroughs at labs, including DeepMind and OpenAI, and the scale of the Google Cloud deal reflects how computationally expensive that work can get.
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Thinking Machines is among the first Google Cloud customers to access its GB300-powered systems, which offer a 2X improvement in training and serving speed compared to prior-generation GPUs, per Google.
“Google Cloud got us running at record speed with the reliability we demand,” Myle Ott, a founding researcher at Thinking Machines, said in a statement.
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Tech
The most interesting startups showcased at Google Cloud Next 2026
Google Cloud Next is taking place this week in Las Vegas, and one clear message has emerged: Google wants AI startups on its cloud. To that end, it made several startup-related announcements.
The most significant is that the tech giant has earmarked a new $750 million budget to help its Cloud partners sell more AI agents to enterprises. This funding is available to partners ranging from startups to the big consulting firms. It can be used for costs like Gemini proof-of-concept projects, Google forward-deployed engineers, cloud credits, and deployment rebates.
Google also highlighted a long list of startups that are using Google Cloud, either newly signed or expanding their footprint. Among them are a few standout names:
Lovable is expanding its use of Google Cloud by launching a new coding agent through Google’s enterprise app marketplace. Lovable is the fast-growing vibe coding startup and was on a $400 million ARR track as of February, it said.
Notion, Silicon Valley’s favorite AI-infused document productivity app, most recently valued at about $11 billion, is using Gemini models to power its text and image generation features.
Gamma, an AI-powered PowerPoint killer recently valued at a $2.1 billion valuation, is using Google’s state-of-the-art image model Nano Banana 2 and other Google Cloud features.
Inferact, the commercial inference startup from the creators of the popular open-source project vLLM, is accessing Nvidia’s GPUs through Google Cloud, in addition to using the tech giant’s AI stack.
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ComfyUI, the popular open-source tool for creating AI-generated images and multimedia, also offers access to Nano Banana 2 and is using other Cloud features.
Other startups that received the Google Cloud shout-out this year include:
ChorusView, which makes AI-powered smart tags that track the condition and movement of goods in real time.
Emergent AI, a vibe coding platform.
ExaCare AI, which makes AI software for post-acute medical care facilities.
Insilica, which creates AI-generated regulatory-compliant chemical safety reports.
Optii, which makes AI-enhanced hotel operations software.
Parallel AI, which builds web search and research APIs built for AI agents.
Proximal Health, which makes AI-powered software that automates the insurance claims adjudication process.
Reducto, which does AI-powered document parsing.
Stord, which handles e-commerce fulfillment and parcel operations.
Stylitics, which makes AI image generation software for retailers for tasks like outfit styling and product bundles.
Temporal, a developer cloud environment built to prevent failures.
Vapi, which makes dev tools for building conversational voice agents.
Vurvey Labs, which conducts synthetic market research via AI agents.
Wand, an in-game assistant for single-player PC games.
Watershed, which makes software that helps enterprises report on and manage sustainability programs.
ZenBusiness, an all-in-one back-office tool for small businesses that includes an AI chat assistant.
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Tech
Duolingo is now giving free users access to advanced learning content
Duolingo announced on Wednesday that its advanced language learning content is now available for free across nine languages: English, Spanish, French, German, Italian, Portuguese, Japanese, Korean, and Chinese. Users can access this content through the web, iOS, and Android devices.
This advanced content is at the B2 level on the Common European Framework of Reference for Languages (CEFR), which is the international standard for language skills that schools and employers recognize. B2 level content refers to learning materials without translations, complex scenarios, and specialized vocabulary.
The new offering will include features like “Advanced Stories,” which helps with reading comprehension, and DuoRadio, a podcast-like audio experience for listening comprehension.
Now that Duolingo users can tap into this advanced learning content for free, they can level up their skills, whether that’s practicing for job interviews, prepping for studying abroad, or tackling complex news articles, films, and books without relying on translations.
The company says this positions it as the only free app to offer advanced-level learning across these nine languages at no cost. While competitors like Babbel and Busuu offer advanced courses, they typically require paid subscriptions. For instance, Busuu has some CEFR-aligned courses up to the B2 level, but the free version is pretty limited and doesn’t offer lessons like grammar explanations, so users need to pay for full access.
Previously, Duolingo only provided free courses that capped at A2 or B1 levels, mainly focusing on basic communication skills.
The company is positioning this free advanced learning offering as an enticing opportunity for job seekers, framing language learning as a practical pathway to improving employability in an increasingly global workforce.
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This comes at a time when the job market remains highly competitive and overall growth has slowed. Research from the American Council on the Teaching of Foreign Languages shows that learning a second language can raise someone’s employability by as much as 50%.
“Reaching job-ready proficiency in a new language used to be out of reach for most people,” Bozena Pajak, head of learning science at Duolingo, said in a statement. “It took years of expensive classes or immersive experiences that not everyone could access.”
Duolingo’s decision to offer advanced learning for free is also a strategy to increase its free user base. In its Q4 earnings report, the company stated that it has 52.7 million daily active users, demonstrating 30% growth compared to the previous year. This number is higher than its paid subscriber base, which stands at 12.2 million. However, Duolingo’s shares fell after the company projected that the year-over-year bookings growth rate for Q2 2026 is expected to experience a slight decline.
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