August 13 - Just a week after OpenAI announced that it was offering ChatGPT Enterprise to all U.S. federal executive branch staff for $1 per agency per year, theAnthropic Just as quickly, it's ramping up. The company said it would make its Claude model available for $1 per organization per year to theUS GovernmentAll three branches, including the legislative and judicial branches, not just the executive.
Anthropic said the policy is valid for one year. Previously, OpenAI, Anthropic, and Google DeepMind were added to the U.S. General Services Administration's list of AI vendors that can sell services to federal civilian agencies.
Anthropic's move comes as it seeks to expand its foothold in U.S. federal AI applications. In a statement, the company said, "We believe the U.S. public sector deserves access to state-of-the-art AI capabilities to tackle complex challenges ranging from scientific research to serving constituents. By combining broad accessibility with uncompromising security standards, we are helping to ensure that AI serves the public interest."
Anthropic will offer both Claude for Enterprise and Claude for Government. The latter supports FedRAMP High workloads, enabling federal workers to process sensitive unclassified work using Claude, which is the Federal Risk and Authorization Management Program's (FedRAMP) rigorous security baseline for handling unclassified sensitive government data.
Anthropic will also provide technical support to help organizations integrate AI tools into their workflows.
Anthropic, along with OpenAI, xAI, and Google, has received up to $200 million (note: current exchange rate is about Rs. 1,438 million) from the U.S. Department of Defense to leverage AI for national security, but the company is clearly looking to integrate more broadly into government efforts, including areas such as scientific research and health services, Anthropic noted in a press release. Claude is already being used to accelerate scientific discovery at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory and at the District of Columbia Department of Health to help residents access health services in multiple languages.
Anthropic says these deployments are possible because Claude "meets the government's highest security standards." In addition to being FedRAMP High certified, customers can access Claude through their existing security infrastructure through partnerships with Amazon Web Services, Google Cloud and Palantir, giving them more control over their data.
Google Inc. is also in talks with the U.S. government about plans to offer its Gemini chatbot to federal employees at a similarly low price, according to people familiar with the matter.