Microsoft: Anthropic Claude remains available to customers except the Department of Defense

Microsoft has confirmed to TechCrunch and other publications that companies and startups using Anthropic Claude through Microsoft products need not fear the model being snatched from their reach.

Microsoft is the first big tech company to offer assurances that Anthropic’s models will remain available to its customers even though the Trump administration’s War Department — officially known as the Department of Defense — has escalated its dispute with Anthropic.

The Department of Defense has designated a US artificial intelligence startup as a supply chain risk after the AI ​​company refused to give it unrestricted access to its technology for applications that the company said its AI could not safely support, such as mass surveillance and fully autonomous weapons.

Supply chain risk classification is typically reserved for foreign liabilities. For Anthropic, the designation means the Pentagon can’t use the company’s products — and also requires any company or agency working with the Pentagon to certify that it doesn’t use Anthropic’s models either. Anthropic He pledged to fight classification In court.

Microsoft sells a range of products, from Office to the cloud, to several federal agencies including the Department of Defense. A Microsoft spokesperson said the company will continue to make Anthropic Models available within its own products and to Microsoft customers.

“Our lawyers have studied the classification and concluded that Anthropic products, including Claude, can remain available to our customers — other than the War Department — through platforms such as M365, GitHub, and Microsoft’s AI Foundry, and that we can continue to work with Anthropic on non-defense-related projects,” the spokesperson said in an email. CNBC Reported for the first time On the comment.

This reflects what Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei said in his statement in which he pledged to fight the label.

“As far as our customers are concerned, this obviously only applies to customers’ use of Claude As a direct part of “Contracts are with the War Department, and not all use of Claude is by customers with such contracts,” Amodei said, adding: “Even for War Department contractors, identifying supply chain risks does not (and cannot) limit Claude’s uses or business relationships with Anthropic if those are not related to their specific War Department contracts.”

Meanwhile, Claude The consumer growth boom continued After Anthropic refused to give in to the department’s demands.