Market & Regulation
Appeals Court Upholds Pentagon Ban on Anthropic
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Why it matters
- →Establishes legal precedent that AI safety refusals can trigger government supply-chain bans.
- →Validates DoD authority to exclude specific models based on ethical constraints deemed security risks.
- →Increases commercial pressure on AI labs to align with military requirements ahead of public listings.
A federal appeals court in Washington, DC, has upheld the Department of Defense’s designation of Anthropic as a supply-chain risk, allowing the ban on Claude models within military systems to remain in place. The judges ruled that the government had ample support for concluding that Anthropic’s refusal to permit autonomous weapons and domestic surveillance presented a statutory national security risk. This decision rejects Anthropic’s arguments regarding due process and free speech, framing the dispute as standard contract negotiations rather than censorship. While a separate San Francisco judge previously blocked one of the designations, this ruling ensures the Pentagon can continue steering contracts toward competitors like SpaceX’s Grok and Google’s Gemini.
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Google Gemini Calls on Pixel 11
Google resurrects its decade-long ambition to automate phone calls with Call for Me, an experimental beta exclusive to Pixel 11. Unlike the failed Duplex, this iteration leverages modern LLMs to navigate hold menus and negotiate appointments in real-time. It represents a tangible shift from passive call screening to active agent execution on consumer hardware. The feature is currently limited to US English users with Gemini subscriptions, serving as a live stress test for voice-based AI agents in unstructured environments.
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OpenAI Agent Hacks Australian Health Portal
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Crusoe cancels $1.25B Boom turbine deal
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OpenAI agents leaked 53 user images online
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Anthropic signs $11.6B cloud deal with Akamai
Anthropic is locking in massive compute capacity through an $11.6 billion, seven-year agreement with Akamai, a figure six times larger than their previous commitment. The deal flips the standard industry script by granting Anthropic warrants for up to 5% of Akamai’s stock, rather than Akamai investing in Anthropic. This structure ties equity upside directly to Anthropic’s spending milestones, potentially expanding the total value to $20 billion. It signals a strategic pivot toward CPU-heavy infrastructure as AI agents demand more general-purpose processing power.
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