US Military Uses Anthropic AI in Iran Strike Operations Despite Recent Ban
The US military has been reported to continue using Anthropic’s artificial intelligence (AI) technology in its latest operational strikes against Iran. This fact has drawn attention after being revealed just hours following President Donald Trump’s official issuance of an executive order banning the technology.
The US military’s dependency on Anthropic’s Claude AI model has emerged during joint military operations between the United States and Israel against Iranian territories. The US Central Command is known to be among those utilising Anthropic’s services in the field.
Although deployed in large-scale military operations, Anthropic’s Claude AI is not believed to be used directly as a lethal decision-maker. The large language model (LLM) Claude is not used for piloting drones or determining bombing targets autonomously. Rather, the AI is focused on handling backend data analysis work. Some of its critical tasks include parsing intelligence data, translating intercepted enemy communications in real time, and optimising military logistics supply chains.
Claude has proven highly proficient at sorting and processing raw data in massive volumes. This analytical capability is valued as indispensable by military personnel in the midst of conflict.
The use of Claude on the battlefield presents a particular irony. Not long ago, US Secretary of Defence Pete Hegseth labelled Anthropic as a “national security risk”. However, the blocking instruction apparently provided a six-month transition period for phasing out systems gradually. The Pentagon is reportedly still struggling to find equivalent replacement AI systems, according to reports.
The company has firmly declined to provide access to its Claude AI model to the US government if used for autonomous weapons systems and mass surveillance programmes. Notably, this course of action avoided by Anthropic has been adopted by its main competitor, OpenAI. The company’s CEO, Sam Altman, recently faced criticism following his announcement of OpenAI’s agreement with the US Department of Defence to deploy its ChatGPT AI model on government secret networks.