Pentagon plans to make US military ‘AI-first fighting force’ by pairing with companies

The Pentagon said on Friday it had reached agreements with seven leading artificial intelligence (AI) companies: SpaceX, OpenAI, Google, Nvidia, Reflection, Microsoft and Amazon Web Services.

“These agreements accelerate the transformation toward establishing the United States military as an AI-first fighting force and will strengthen our warfighters’ ability to maintain decision superiority across all domains of warfare,” the Pentagon said in statement.

The US Department of Defense is budgeting tens of billions of dollars for numerous technology firms’ cutting edge programs related to intelligence, drone warfare, classified and unclassified information networks and much more.

The plans have sparked disputes with some AI firms and controversy and concerns over public spending, global cyber security and the capacity for such technology to be used for domestic surveillance.

In January Pete Hegseth, the secretary of defense, unveiled a new “AI acceleration strategy” at the Pentagon that he said will “unleash experimentation, eliminate bureaucratic barriers, focus on investments, and demonstrate the execution approach needed to ensure we lead in military AI and that it grows more dominant into the future”.

On Friday, the department announced that the companies mentioned will be integrated into what it called the Pentagon’s “Impact Levels 6 and 7” network environments to “streamline data synthesis, elevate situational understanding, and augment warfighter decision-making in complex operational environments”, according to a federal statement.

“These agreements accelerate the transformation toward establishing the United States military as an AI-first fighting force and will strengthen our warfighters’ ability to maintain decision superiority across all domains of warfare,” the Pentagon’s statement added.

Another AI giant, Anthropic, has been in dispute with the Pentagon over guardrails for how the military could use its artificial intelligence tools, which led the Pentagon to label Anthropic a supply-chain risk last month, barring its use by the Pentagon and its contractors.

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Reuters contributed reporting.