The Department of Defense (DOD) announced that it had awarded contracts to several artificial intelligence (AI) companies, such as Elon Musk’s xAI, Google, Anthropic, and OpenAI.
In a press release, the DOD’s Chief Digital and Artificial Intelligence Office (CDAO) revealed that “leading U.S. frontier AI companies” had been awarded contracts in order to “accelerate” the DOD’s “adoption of advanced AI capabilities to address critical national security challenges.”
The awards to the companies each had a “$200M ceiling,” according to the press release:
The awards to Anthropic, Google, OpenAI, and xAI – each with a $200M ceiling – will enable the Department to leverage the technology and talent of U.S. frontier AI companies to develop agentic AI workflows across a variety of mission areas. Establishing these partnerships will broaden DoD use of and experience in frontier AI capabilities and increase the ability of these companies to understand and address critical national security needs with the most advanced AI capabilities U.S. industry has to offer.
“The adoption of AI is transforming the Department’s ability to support our warfighters and maintain strategic advantage over our adversaries,” Chief Digital and AI Officer Dr. Doug Matty said in a statement.
“Announcing Grok for Government – a suite of products that make our frontier models available to United States Government customers,” Musk’s xAI wrote in a post on X. “We are especially excited about two new partnerships for our US Government partners.”
Musk’s Grok, the chatbot used on X (formerly Twitter), recently faced backlash after “making a series of wildly antisemitic remarks” on the social media platform.
Breitbart News reported in June that OpenAI had been granted a $200 million one-year contract “to put generative” AI to work for the United States military.
