Overview
- The White House approved a classified $9 billion request to buy advanced AI chips and the specialized data‑center infrastructure needed to run them, with roughly $800 million reprogrammed for faster near‑term capacity.
- The purchase will focus on Nvidia’s Grace Blackwell architecture, which requires high electrical power and liquid cooling and cannot run on standard government data centers.
- To bridge immediate shortfalls, White House chief of staff Susie Wiles authorized the NSA to keep using Anthropic’s Mythos model while a classified contract with usage carve‑outs to protect Americans’ data is finalized.
- The Pentagon had sought broader 'any lawful use' authority for Anthropic technology, but reporting says the new classified contract does not include that language, highlighting intra‑agency policy tensions.
- Analysts warn the buy treats AI compute as a strategic asset and will likely tighten global chip supply, benefit major suppliers such as Nvidia, and shape where and how classified AI work is run in the U.S.