India, March 4 -- Last Friday, the US AI giant, Anthropic, the maker of Claude AI, a fierce rival to OpenAI's ChatGPT, lost a contract with Pentagon. Hours later, ChatGPT announced a deal with the US defense department. On Saturday, Claude became the No. 1 app download in the US, as it overtook OpenAI. President Donald Trump dubbed Claude as a "radical left AI company." Claude responded that no "intimidation or punishment from the Department of War" would force it to cave. It vowed to "challenge any supply chain risk designation in court."

The contentious issues between Claude and Trump (or Pentagon) relate to a refusal to loosen safeguards for military use of the AI model, and red lines against the use for mass surveillance, and autonom...