The US Department of Defense on Monday awarded OpenAI a $200m contract to put generative artificial intelligence (AI) to work for the US military.
The San Francisco-based company will “develop prototype frontier AI capabilities to address critical national security challenges in both warfighting and enterprise domains”, according to the defense department’s posting of awarded contracts.
The program with the defense department is the first partnership under the startup’s initiative to put AI to work in governments, according to OpenAI. The company plans to show how cutting-edge AI can vastly improve administrative operations such as how service members get healthcare and also cyber defenses, according to a blog post.
The startup claims that all use of AI for the military will be consistent with OpenAI usage guidelines, which are determined by OpenAI itself.
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Big tech companies are increasingly pitching their tools to the US military, among them Meta and, more predictably, Palantir, the AI defense company founded by Peter Thiel, the conservative tech billionaire who has played a major role in Silicon Valley’s rightward shift.
OpenAI and defense tech startup Anduril Industries late last year announced a partnership to develop and deploy AI solutions “for security missions”. The alliance brings together OpenAI models and Anduril’s military tech platform to ramp up defenses against aerial drones and other “unmanned aircraft systems”, according to the companies.
“OpenAI builds AI to benefit as many people as possible, and supports US-led efforts to ensure the technology upholds democratic values,” OpenAI’s chief executive, Sam Altman, said at the time.
