Anthropic loses legal fight to shed DOD's designation as a 'supply-chain risk'
CFOTO/Future Publishing via Getty Images
ByJohn Croxton,
Tarbell Fellow
September 28, 2026 08:00 AM ET
The label is more typically assigned to companies suspected of ties to adversarial governments.
Anthropic will remain a Pentagon-designated supply-chain risk, thanks to federal judges who ruled that the Defense Department can prohibit its employees and contractors from using the AI company's products for DOD business.
The designation has been in force since March, when the department sought to alter its contract with Anthropic to replace prohibitions on using its tools for domestic mass surveillance and fully autonomous weapons with allowances for “all lawful use."
The department has used two statutory justifications for labeling Anthropic a supply-chain risk, a designation typically applied to firms suspected to be working for adversarial governments. Anthropic beat back one of the justifications in an August rulingin the Northern District of California, but did not prevail...
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