Nvidia’s Huang says any Pentagon–Anthropic rift is ‘not the end of the world’
Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang speaks at the 2026 CES event in Las Vegas on January 6, 2026.
Bridget Bennett | Bloomberg | Getty Images
Nvidia The dispute between the U.S. Department of Defense and Anthropic “is not the end of the world,” CEO Jensen Huang said Wednesday.
His comments came after US Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth gave Anthropic until Friday to relax the Pentagon’s rules on how it can use AI tools or risk losing its government contract.
Sources told CNBC’s Ashley Capoot and Kate Rooney earlier this week that Hegseth threatened to label the company a “supply chain risk” or invoke the Defense Production Act if Anthropic did not comply.
Speaking to CNBC’s Becky Quick on Wednesday, Huang said the Department of Defense has the right to use technology and use the products it procures to serve its own interests.
Likewise, Anthropic has the right to decide how they want to market their product and what type of use cases it can be used for. “So I think they both have a reasonable perspective,” he said.
Anthropic’s negotiations with the Department of Defense stalled because it was seeking assurances that its models would not be used for autonomous weapons or mass surveillance of Americans. Meanwhile, the Department of Defense wants the company to accept “all lawful use cases” without limitation.
Huang stated that Anthropic is not the only artificial intelligence company in the world and the Ministry of Justice is not the only customer, and said, “I hope they can solve this, but if it is not solved, it is not the end of the world.”
Anthropic was founded in 2021 by a group of former OpenAI researchers and executives and is best known for developing a family of AI models called Claude. The company was given an award 200 million dollars We signed a contract with the Ministry of Defense last year.
Antropik and Nvidia signed an agreement strategic partnership In November. The Claude manufacturer adopted Nvidia’s technology architecture and received a $5 billion investment commitment from the chip designer.
— CNBC’s Ashley Capoot and Kate Rooney contributed to this story
