For a buck, Uncle Sam can now have Claude — Anthropic's AI assistant — at his service in the latest move by tech giants to charm Washington, D.C. and secure a foothold in the federal AI race.
Anthropic, the AI startup backed by Amazon.com Inc (NASDAQ:AMZN), announced on Tuesday that it would offer its large-language model to all federal agencies for $1.
The San Francisco-based start-up said access to Claude will allow government employees to “improve and accelerate their work, ranging from groundbreaking scientific breakthroughs to mission-critical national security operations, and we can't wait for more partners to use Claude’s capabilities to advance their missions.”
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Anthropic’s government models are certified for FedRAMP High, the highest requirement for handling unclassified sensitive government data.
The company said agencies can access Claude through existing infrastructure with Amazon Web Services for cloud computing, Palantir Technologies Inc (NASDAQ:PLTR) and Alphabet Inc’s (NASDAQ:GOOG) (NASDAQ:GOOGL) Google Cloud.
Several Claude’s competitors in the AI industry have also vied to win federal contracts in recent months.
On Aug. 6, OpenAI, the AI start-up backed by Microsoft Corp (NASDAQ:MSFT), announced it would offer similar services to the federal government through the U.S. General Services Administration.
"One of the best ways to make sure AI works for everyone is to put it in the hands of the people serving our country," CEO Sam Altman said in the announcement. "We're proud to partner with the General Services Administration, delivering on President Trump's AI Action Plan, to make ChatGPT available across the federal government, helping public servants deliver for the American people."
Under the partnership, participating agencies will receive access to ChatGPT models for $1 along with educational tools.
Meanwhile, Microsoft, Oracle Corp (NYSE:ORCL), Salesforce Inc (NYSE:CRM), and other tech giants have raced to offer discounts to government agencies to win contracts, according to the Wall Street Journal.
Trump has prioritized eliminating waste in government spending in his second term. Yet the federal government has already spent $3.6 trillion from January to June of 2025. That’s up $142 billion from this same period last year, according to the latest Monthly Treasury Statement.
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