Nigeria, Feb. 28 -- The dispute between the US defence establishment and Anthropic may look like a contract disagreement. It is not. It is an early sign of something more consequential: a struggle over who governs artificial intelligence when it becomes embedded in national power.

Public reporting suggests Anthropic resisted certain Pentagon terms around the military deployment of its models and the scope of acceptable use. The administration responded by directing federal agencies to halt the use of the company's technology and by designating it a supply chain risk. Sam Altman, CEO of Anthropic's rival, OpenAI, has indicated that OpenAI maintains similar boundaries in defence contexts. He said, "we have long believed that AI should not ...