U.S. Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth attends the Medal of Honor Ceremony in the East Room of the White House on Monday, March 2, 2026 in Washington, DC, USA.
Jim Roe Scalzo | EPA | Bloomberg | Getty Images
Technology industry association. Members include: Nvidia, google Anthropic sent a letter to Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth on Wednesday expressing concern about the designation of the U.S. company as a supply chain risk.
The letter, written by the Information Technology Industry Council (ITI), does not name Anthropic, but the artificial intelligence company was labeled as such on Friday after failing to reach an agreement with the Department of Defense.
ITI said in the letter that it is “concerned by recent reports that the Department of the Army is considering imposing supply chain risk designations in response to procurement disputes.”
Other members of ITI include: microsoft, apple and Amazon.
“Contractual disputes should be resolved by ongoing negotiations between the parties or by the ministry selecting an alternative provider through established procurement channels,” ITI said. “Emergency authorities such as supply chain risk designations exist for true emergencies and are typically reserved for entities designated as foreign adversaries.”
Hegseth announced on Friday that the Department of Defense would classify Anthropic as a “supply chain risk to national security,” shortly after President Donald Trump ordered all U.S. government agencies to immediately stop using the company’s technology.
ITI’s letter cites established processes, including the Federal Acquisition Supply Chain Security Act of 2018 and the Federal Acquisition Security Council, to protect federal information systems from risk.
“FASCSA also provides several layers of procedural due process protections for private companies, including providing notification requirements and an opportunity to respond before making such a designation,” ITI wrote.
Anthropic, which won a $200 million contract from the Department of Defense in July, had asked the government to guarantee that its technology would not be used for autonomous weapons or for large-scale domestic surveillance of Americans. The Pentagon objected, demanding that the military be allowed to use the platform for all lawful uses.
Antropic said in a statement Friday that it was “deeply saddened” by the decision.
“Designating Anthropic as a supply chain risk would be an unprecedented step, historically reserved for adversaries of the United States and never before publicly applied to U.S. companies,” Anthropic wrote.
OpenAI CEO Sam Altman said later that day that the company had reached an agreement with the Department of Defense, but wrote to X that “forcing an SCR designation on Anthropic would be very bad for our industry, our country, and clearly their company.”
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