OpenAI wins $200M U.S. defense contract

Summary

OpenAI CEO Sam Altman speaks during the Snowflake Summit in San Francisco on June 2, 2025.Justin Sullivan | Getty Images News | Getty ImagesOpenAI has been awarded a $200 million contract to provide the U.S. Defense Department with artificial intelligence tools.The department announced the one-year contract on Monday, months after OpenAI said it would collaborate with defense technology startup Anduril to deploy advanced AI systems for "national security missions.""Under this award, the performer will develop prototype frontier AI capabilities to address critical national security challenges in both warfighting and enterprise domains," the Defense Department said. It's the first contract with OpenAI listed on the Department of Defense's website.Anduril received a $100 million defense contract in December. Weeks earlier, OpenAI rival Anthropic said it would work with Palantir and Amazon to supply its AI models to U.S. defense and intelligence agencies.Sam Altman, OpenAI's co-founder and CEO, said in a discussion with OpenAI board member and former National Security Agency leader Paul Nakasone at a Vanderbilt University event in April that "we have to and are proud to and really want to engage in national security areas."In a blog post, OpenAI said the contract represents the first arrangement in a new initiative named OpenAI for Government, which includes the existing ChatGPT Gov product. OpenAI for Government will give U.S. government bodies access custom AI models for national security, support and product roadmap information."This contract, with a $200 million ceiling, will bring OpenAI's industry-leading expertise to help the Defense Department identify and prototype how frontier AI can transform its administrative operations, from improving how service members and their families get health care, to streamlining how they look at program and acquisition data, to supporting proactive cyber defense," the company said. "All use cases must be consistent with OpenAI's ...