US Defense Department Awards Contracts To Google, xAI

The U.S. Department of Defense has awarded contracts worth up to $200 million each to OpenAI, Google, Anthropic, and xAI to scale adoption of advanced AI. 'The contracts will enable the DoD to develop agentic AI workflows and use them to address critical national security challenges,' reports Reuters, citing the department's Chief Digital and Artificial Intelligence Office. From the report: Separately on Monday, xAI announced a suite of its products called 'Grok for Government', making its advanced AI models -- including its latest flagship Grok 4 -- available to federal, local, state and national security customers. The Pentagon announced last month that OpenAI was awarded a $200 million contract, saying the ChatGPT maker would 'develop prototype frontier AI capabilities to address critical national security challenges in both warfighting and enterprise domains.'

The contracts announced on Monday deepen the ties between companies leading the AI race and U.S. government operations, while addressing concerns around the need for competitive contracts for AI use in federal agencies. 'The adoption of AI is transforming the (DoD's) ability to support our warfighters and maintain strategic advantage over our adversaries,' Chief Digital and AI Officer Doug Matty said.

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