A federal judge has ruled that the Trump administration’s blacklisting of artificial intelligence (A.I.) startup Anthropic on national security concerns was illegal.
U.S. District Court Judge Rita Lin ruled that the U.S. Department of Defense violated the First Amendment by designating Anthropic a supply chain risk.
The judge said the decision by the Pentagon was “based on a desire to make a public example” out of privately held Anthropic.
Lin wrote that the government’s argument for blacklisting Anthropic on national security grounds was not founded on any “articulable basis.”
The court ruling comes after the Pentagon in March of this year designated Anthropic as a supply chain risk, meaning the company purportedly threatened U.S. national security.
The Pentagon’s designation came after negotiations on how the U.S. military could use Anthropic’s Claude artificial intelligence (A.I.) models collapsed.
Anthropic wanted assurances that its technology would not be used for autonomous weapons or domestic mass surveillance, while the Pentagon wanted unrestricted access to Claude.
Management at Anthropic said the blacklisting was politically motivated and the result of the U.S. Defense Department not getting full access to the company’s A.I.
Anthropic became the first U.S. company to publicly be named a supply chain risk.
The designation barred defence contractors from using Anthropic’s technology in their work with America’s federal government.
Judge Lin’s ruling gives Anthropic a win, but the Trump administration plans to appeal the decision. Until that case is resolved, Anthropic remains a supply chain risk and on the blacklist.
Anthropic is a private company and its stock does not trade on a public exchange. The company was last valued at $965 billion U.S. in a funding round.
