Anthropic, Google, OpenAI and xAI get $800M to hop in bed with Pentagon

The Pentagon's embrace of the AI industry just put up to $800 million on the table as the Department of Defense has issued a quartet of contracts bringing the biggest names in the biz officially into the fold. 

The Pentagon's Chief Digital and Artificial Intelligence Office (CDAO) today announced contracts with Anthropic, Google, OpenAI, and xAI to help it use artificial intelligence for a multitude of military purposes - each with a $200 million ceiling. 

The four firms contracted for the work are all behind AI models the DoD believes have game-changing defense applications. The Pentagon appears particularly eager to pursue agentic AI, mentioning in the announcement that it hopes to use the skills of AI experts at the four firms "to develop agentic AI workflows across a variety of mission areas." 

The DoD hopes the early experiments will help it understand how to apply AI for its purposes ...