Google, Microsoft, and Amazon continue offering Claude models for commercial use while defense restrictions trigger legal challenge
Major cloud providers are standing by their partnerships with Anthropic after the U.S. Department of Defense labeled the AI firm a supply chain risk and barred it from federal defense contracts. Despite the restriction, companies including Google, Microsoft, and Amazon confirmed they will continue offering Anthropic’s artificial intelligence models to commercial customers.
Google said Anthropic’s technology remains available through its cloud services for non-defense applications. Anthropic’s AI models, including its flagship Claude system, are integrated into Google Cloud’s Vertex AI platform and are widely used by businesses developing generative AI applications.
Microsoft issued a similar statement, assuring customers that Anthropic’s technology will remain accessible outside defense-related projects. Legal teams at Microsoft determined that the government’s designation does not prevent the company from offering Anthropic products to commercial clients.
Amazon, the largest public cloud provider, echoed the same approach. The company confirmed that Anthropic’s AI technology will remain available on its cloud infrastructure for private sector users, excluding projects involving the Department of Defense.
The Pentagon’s designation followed a dispute over the government’s requested terms of use for Anthropic’s technology. After the company declined to accept those conditions, President Donald Trump directed federal agencies to stop using Anthropic systems, and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth announced that existing defense work involving the company would be phased out over six months.
Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei confirmed that the company plans to challenge the designation in court, arguing that the decision could harm its ability to operate in government markets.
Despite the federal restriction, Anthropic continues to maintain strong partnerships across the cloud computing sector. Google alone has invested roughly $3 billion in the company and recently expanded its infrastructure partnership, granting Anthropic access to up to one million of Google’s custom tensor processing units (TPUs) to train advanced AI models.
The situation highlights the growing tension between national security concerns and the rapidly expanding commercial artificial intelligence industry.
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