Soon after the Trump administration halted Anthropic’s services across federal agencies, OpenAI announced a landmark agreement with the US Department of Defense to deploy its AI models on the Pentagon’s classified network. CEO Sam Altman said the deal reflects strong safety commitments, including bans on domestic mass surveillance and human control over use of force. The move comes amid tensions between the Pentagon and Anthropic over military AI limits. OpenAI says technical safeguards and cloud-only deployment will guide the partnership as AI competition intensifies inside US defense systems.