(March 17): OpenAI has signed a new deal to sell access to its AI models to US defence and government agencies through Amazon's cloud unit for classified and unclassified work, the ChatGPT maker said on Tuesday. The contract enables OpenAI to support the Pentagon under a deal it secured late last month, after the agency dropped its previous AI provider, Anthropic. OpenAI, which had previously focused on unclassified government use, has now secured a Pentagon contract to provide its models for classified operations. Its partnership with AWS builds on this latest shift, reflecting how access to government and defence contracts, especially via cloud providers already embedded in federal systems, is becoming a key battleground. Following OpenAI's transition to a for-profit structure last fall, the company updated its agreement with Microsoft to allow partnerships with rival cloud providers in selling AI to national security customers, including the Pentagon.

Source: The Edge Markets March 17, 2026 13:32 UTC