New Delhi, Feb. 25 -- Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth has reportedly given Anthropic chief executive Dario Amodei until Friday (27 February) evening to grant the US military unfettered access to its flagship AI model, Claude, or face severe consequences, according to a report by Axios.

The ultimatum, delivered during what the Axios report stated citing officials in the know described as a tense meeting on Tuesday (24 February), underscores a widening rift over the boundaries of AI safeguards in national security operations. At stake is the Pentagon's continued access to Claude - currently the only AI model embedded in its most sensitive classified systems.

Pete Hegseth established Friday deadline introduces a critical inflection point in...