Anthropic, Google, OpenAI and XAI Granted Up to $200M from Defense Department
75 comments
·July 14, 2025clarle
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.
paxys
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.
haiku2077
Meta and Amazon both have separate DoD contracts (Meta with Anduril, Amazon through massive GovCloud contracts)
prmph
What is $200M to Amazon and Meta?
datadrivenangel
These call order type packages mean that it's probably over 3-5 years, so not really that large a procurement.
kurthr
I've worked with VCs that refereed to deals like these as "mouse nuts".
ushiroda80
So basically one Ruoming Pang each...
paul7986
Microsoft said they were beefing up their expenditure in AI with and or around the announcement of layoffs.
So does this mean all the web designers, web developers and many other white collar jobs will now be done by one such professional using AI; so XYZ use to require ten people to get the job done now only one who uses AI gets the tasks done (tasks that those ten use to use software applications to complete). All the while a few hundred of Ruoming Pangs make more money then God in which their work further helps killing white collar jobs.
Is there anyone else concerned about this? I am federal worker indirectly yet per some news today not sure how much longer I will be and whether or not it wise to go look for another web design/developer/UX Researcher (think this is safest out of three as you are talking to ppl)position. There are throngs of others looking now to compete against including now competing against AI for less jobs.
firesteelrain
That’s not a lot of money between four companies.
layer8
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...)
firesteelrain
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
johnb231
It will be enough to deliver the requirements for the DoD. They don’t need to spend any more or any less than what is required. Your point seems irrelevant if you don’t know their exact requirements.
throwaway287391
Nice, should be enough for them to outbid Meta to retain 1 employee (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44308000)
richardw
Testing the waters. I’d guess if it pays any dividends things will ramp up. This is also across all suppliers. At some point they’ll put more wood behind fewer arrows.
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AstroBen
OpenAI is above 10 billion ARR and still growing fast.. this seems tiny in comparison?
paxys
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.
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unixhero
Seems small???
rpmisms
In the words of Will Stancil: AYFKM?
A_D_E_P_T
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.
inquirerGeneral
[dead]
whyenot
I guess Zuck got the shaft?
layer8
The $200M would only pay for a single researcher at Meta. ;)
jedberg
The fact that XAI is in this list is just blatant corruption. Their CEO was a government employee until a month ago.
lttlrck
If they weren't there it would raise just as many eyebrows, wouldn't it?
rany_
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.
crowcroft
Grok is pretty good, both the model in the API and the consumer products built on top. Llama is way behind, and the meta.ai app is much worse than the leading chat assistant products.
jedberg
Not really. It would be obvious to anyone who's ever seen a government contract that they were excluded for ethics reasons.
paxys
And their chatbot just had a Nazi meltdown last week.
wordofx
Oh get over it. It’s not corruption. Stop spreading misinformation.
koolba
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
> 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
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?
buzzerbetrayed
He’s not a government employee. You said it yourself lol
slantedview
> Should government contracts not be granted on the merits of the receivers?
The merits? We just had, in the last _week_, a huge scaldal where Grok was spewing racist, pro hitler content, even calling itself MechaHitler.
Lucasoato
Meanwhile in Europe, we're sleeping on regulation and no real plan to face the challenges and opportunities linked to AI...
layer8
https://digital-strategy.ec.europa.eu/en/news/eu-launches-in...: “EU launches InvestAI initiative to mobilise €200 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 €1 billion per year in AI.”
jokeasspsoe
Spain is paying 1000 euro a month to their soldiers, that's how seriously we take defense
downrightmike
They'd have more money now if they didn't skimp on ships 400 years ago. Gotta play the long game my dudes
abletonlive
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
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/...
abletonlive
Ah yes because Europe is famous for protecting user privacy and doesn’t have a long list of counterexamples despite all of its regulations
At least we have a real example of landable rockets.
This money should be going to companies that need 200M.
For 200M Google will open an account, send an email that says:
You're account is ready, there is $40m left on the retainer. We can code up some email template for 40M if you want.