The Pentagon has raised new national security concerns about Anthropic's employment of foreign workers, particularly from China, in a March 17 court filing. Defense Department undersecretary Emil Michael stated that Anthropic employs a large number of foreign nationals to build and support its AI products, including many from China. The Pentagon argues this creates adversarial risks if those employees comply with China's National Intelligence Law.
The filing is part of the Defense Department's effort to dismiss Anthropic's lawsuit challenging its designation as a supply chain risk. The Pentagon earlier this month officially designated Anthropic a supply chain risk, prompting the AI company to seek court intervention to undo the designation and block its enforcement. Anthropic is also asking federal agencies to withdraw directives requiring them to drop the company's services.
The Pentagon distinguished Anthropic from other major U.S. AI companies that also employ foreign workers, stating that risks with other labs are reduced by their leadership's technical and security assurances and consistently responsible behavior when working with the Defense Department. However, the filing notes that Anthropic's case is different, suggesting broader national security concerns beyond previous disagreements over domestic surveillance and autonomous weapons.
Despite the security concerns, the Pentagon continues to rely on Anthropic's services and is willing to extend deadlines for offboarding the company's tools as necessary. Foreign-born workers constitute a significant portion of top AI talent in the U.S., with Chinese-origin researchers making up roughly 38-40% of top AI talent at U.S. institutions as of 2023, according to recent reports.