US Department of Defense announces multi-million dollar deals with tech companies

The US Department of Defense’s Chief Digital and Artificial Intelligence Office (CDAO) has disclosed that it made deals with several leading AI companies to address critical national security challenges.

The contracts with Anthropic, Google, OpenAI, and xAI are worth up to $200 million each. The Department of Defense intends to use the technology and talent of these companies to develop agentic AI workflows across a variety of mission areas.

According to the US government, these partnerships will broaden the implementation of AI capabilities to improve America’s critical national security needs.

“Frontier AI companies lead development of the most advanced AI models and technologies, conduct insightful research into the use of frontier AI, and pioneer efforts to address both the potential benefits and risks of frontier AI technologies,” the CDAO writes in a press release.

“The adoption of AI is transforming the Department’s ability to support our warfighters and maintain strategic advantage over our adversaries. Leveraging commercially available solutions into an integrated capabilities approach will accelerate the use of advanced AI as part of our Joint mission essential tasks in our warfighting domain as well as intelligence, business, and enterprise information systems,” Chief Digital and AI Officer Dr. Doug Matty said in a statement.

On Monday, Elon Musk’s AI company xAI announced Grok For Government, a suite of AI products available to the US government.

In addition to commercial models like Grok 4, Grok For Government also includes custom AI tools intended to support federal, local, state, and national security and so-called “critical science applications.”

Last month, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman introduced OpenAI For Government, an initiative to bring advanced AI tools to government bodies across the United States.

“We’re supporting the US government’s efforts in adopting best-in-class technology and deploying these tools in service of the public good. Our goal is to unlock AI solutions that enhance the capabilities of government workers, help them cut down on the red tape and paperwork, and let them do more of what they come to work each day to do: serve the American people,” the AI company’s public announcement reads.

Just like the deal with xAI and the other tech companies, OpenAI’s contract has a $200 million ceiling.