[HN Gopher] Anthropic, Google, OpenAI and XAI Granted Up to $200...
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Anthropic, Google, OpenAI and XAI Granted Up to $200M from Defense
Department
Author : ChrisArchitect
Score : 76 points
Date : 2025-07-14 21:16 UTC (1 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.cnbc.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.cnbc.com)
| datadrivenangel wrote:
| These call order type packages mean that it's probably over 3-5
| years, so not really that large a procurement.
| kurthr wrote:
| I've worked with VCs that refereed to deals like these as
| "mouse nuts".
| rpmisms wrote:
| In the words of Will Stancil: AYFKM?
| A_D_E_P_T wrote:
| In fairness to poor Will, this contract was probably decided
| weeks or even months ago. The DoD isn't known for moving
| quickly or being responsive.
| Lucasoato wrote:
| Meanwhile in Europe, we're sleeping on regulation and no real
| plan to face the challenges and opportunities linked to AI...
| jokeasspsoe wrote:
| Spain is paying 1000 euro a month to their soldiers, that's how
| seriously we take defense
| downrightmike wrote:
| They'd have more money now if they didn't skimp on ships 400
| years ago. Gotta play the long game my dudes
| layer8 wrote:
| https://digital-strategy.ec.europa.eu/en/news/eu-launches-
| in...: "EU launches InvestAI initiative to mobilise EUR200
| billion of investment in artificial intelligence"
|
| And from https://digital-
| strategy.ec.europa.eu/en/policies/european-a...: "Both the
| Horizon Europe and Digital Europe programmes will invest EUR1
| billion per year in AI."
| abletonlive wrote:
| Europe can be delegated to figuring out how to improve metrics
| such as "quality of life" and "privacy" while the United States
| tries to figure out everything else like landing rockets and
| how far we can take LLMs
| dbspin wrote:
| Love the scare quotes around the very things that make life
| worth living. America at least has the National Park system
| for metrics like "nature". Oh wait...
|
| https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/ng-
| interactive/2025/may/...
| firesteelrain wrote:
| That's not a lot of money between four companies.
| layer8 wrote:
| It's up to $200M for each of them. From the actual source:
|
| "The awards to Anthropic, Google, OpenAI, and xAI - each with a
| $200M ceiling - will enable the Department to leverage the
| technology and talent of U.S. frontier AI companies to develop
| agentic AI workflows across a variety of mission areas."
|
| (https://www.ai.mil/Latest/News-Press/PR-
| View/Article/4242822...)
| throwaway287391 wrote:
| Nice, should be enough for them to outbid Meta to retain 1
| employee (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44308000)
| firesteelrain wrote:
| It's still not a lot. How much do tokens cost for example?
|
| In theory if it's just labor with some profit mixed in, then
| you might be looking at 600 employees for each company.
|
| I doubt it is just labor. Quote says $200 million ceiling. So
| maybe a time and materials (T&M) contract? It's a ceiling so
| it's not like they earn or are guaranteed $200m.
|
| Has to include token or cloud computing time too. Which
| Google owns and can amortize themselves since it's a capital
| asset to them. I don't know much about the cloud computing
| background of Anthropic or if they are using Azure or AWS.
|
| I think my original point is still valid it's not a lot when
| you look at it
| whyenot wrote:
| I guess Zuck got the shaft?
| layer8 wrote:
| The $200M would only pay for a single researcher at Meta. ;)
| clarle wrote:
| Are Amazon and Meta the ones losing out the most here, in terms
| of the companies building foundational models?
|
| Probably more understandable for Meta, since they've been leaving
| the B2B space since Workplace has been sunset. Amazon losing out
| on this is pretty rough for AWS though.
| haiku2077 wrote:
| Meta and Amazon both have separate DoD contracts (Meta with
| Anduril, Amazon through massive GovCloud contracts)
| paxys wrote:
| Is Amazon trying to build a competitive foundation model? From
| what I can see AWS is instead focused on hosting and re-
| licensing Claude, Cohere, DeepSeek and others via Bedrock. And
| it's pretty likely that a large chunk of this $200M will
| anyways go to AWS. So I'd hardly call them a loser here.
| XorNot wrote:
| Aka the "sell gold pans during a gold rush" strategy.
|
| AFAIK AWS are pushing pretty hard with GovCloud these days.
| jedberg wrote:
| The fact that XAI is in this list is just blatant corruption.
| Their CEO was a government employee until a month ago.
| koolba wrote:
| Why would that exclude them from the running? Should government
| contracts not be granted on the merits of the receivers? Grok
| clearly exists in this space so it's not like they're rewarding
| vaporware.
| jedberg wrote:
| > Should government contracts not be granted on the merits of
| the receivers?
|
| They should, but businesses owned by government employees
| should be excluded because it's too easy to corrupt the
| process. In fact, they have explicit rules about not doing
| that.
| koolba wrote:
| But he's no longer a "special government employee" anymore
| either. Or are you suggesting he's blacklisted from all
| government contracts for life because he previously worked
| for the current administration?
| unshavedyak wrote:
| Not OP, but "For life" is a far cry from a month or two
| after. But yes, i'd argue we have no choice but to
| _attempt_ to aggressively put bounds between government
| and profiteering. Lest we have Congress openly insider
| trade..
| lttlrck wrote:
| If they weren't there it would raise just as many eyebrows,
| wouldn't it?
| rany_ wrote:
| Meta not being on the list is more suspect IMO. At least it
| seems to me that Meta is where the actual talent/potential
| is.
| paxys wrote:
| And their chatbot just had a Nazi meltdown last week.
| AstroBen wrote:
| OpenAI is above 10 billion ARR and still growing fast.. this
| seems tiny in comparison?
| paxys wrote:
| 2% of a company's revenue is definitely not tiny. And
| regardless, there's still reason to participate and hope the
| number gets bigger in the future.
| 0xbadcafebee wrote:
| [delayed]
| bix6 wrote:
| Why not 20x $10M grants for smaller companies? They're gonna
| throw this money with no oversight anyways so why not bolster the
| actual startup scene instead of a bunch of incumbents who all
| have more than enough cash? $10M could keep a startup running for
| 1+ years at its most crucial time. That's 10 solutions instead of
| 1 -- statistically one of them will be a massive breakthrough?
| stuckkeys wrote:
| That is why we need folks like you running the government and
| not asshats that are currently in positions ruining it all for
| all.
| DeepYogurt wrote:
| > Why not 20x $10M grants for smaller companies?
|
| That's not how corruption works
| creddit wrote:
| "Corruption is when the US government pays the 4 leading
| American AI producers for the use of their products"
| xyst wrote:
| This isn't a grant to push for innovation. This is a promise
| from the orange man administration to the people and companies
| that donated to his "inauguration fund"
|
| This is a kleptocracy but with extra steps. People are
| unfortunately numb to it.
| creddit wrote:
| Which AI company _should_ the DoD purchase from?
| paxys wrote:
| Who are these smaller companies, and what do they have to offer
| that these 4 don't? Chances are that the smaller companies
| themselves are licensing the LLM from Google/Anthropic/OpenAI,
| so why pay middlemen for no reason?
| bix6 wrote:
| You're telling me that you can't find 10 worthwhile AI
| startups to give money to? I bet there are 1000 on crunchbase
| right now. With $10M some of them could buy hardware to build
| their own systems.
| paxys wrote:
| This isn't a VC fund. The contract is for an actual
| service, and the companies best suited to provide them will
| get it, no matter their size.
| bix6 wrote:
| Yeah that's why Boeing keeps getting government money.
| creddit wrote:
| Who are those 20 companies? What would $10M do in the context
| of training LLMs that are competitive with Claude/O3/Gemini?
|
| > That's 10 solutions instead of 1 -- statistically one of them
| will be a massive breakthrough?
|
| The statistic is that 10% of startups make a massive
| breakthrough? Would love to see some work that comes remotely
| close to replicating that! Startup investing would be trivially
| easy.
| bix6 wrote:
| Responded to the other poster with the same question.
|
| Everyone says 1 out of 100 makes it big but the top 5-10% of
| a portfolio is still substantial. If we're only giving the
| money to companies with revenue the odds of success are
| likely improved.
|
| Startup investing is trivially easy. You give money to good
| companies and founders. There's just a bunch of BS that gets
| in the way. Like giving massive money to big corps that don't
| need it instead of startups that do.
| creddit wrote:
| Who are the companies? List some!
| koolba wrote:
| > $10M could keep a startup running for 1+ years at its most
| crucial time. That's 10 solutions instead of 1 -- statistically
| one of them will be a massive breakthrough?
|
| The failure rate for startups is much higher than 90%. And
| there's the additional complexity of how do you pick which 20
| such startups get the cash.
| bix6 wrote:
| See my response to the other posters with the same notes
|
| On the picking: it's really not hard to search for AI
| companies and pick 20. In fact there are government programs
| that invest in startups so clearly it's doable.
| nyarlathotep_ wrote:
| Is 'X' is going to develop an "Agentic" weapon to hunt down Will
| Stancil?
|
| (Only partially joking here)
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