Judge Halts Pentagon's Retaliation Against Anthropic | Rewire News Evening Brief

A federal judge blocked the Pentagon's supply chain risk label for Anthropic using an "Orwellian" term. Huawei AI chip received orders from ByteDance and Alibaba for the first time, and SMIC's supply to Iran was exposed.

1｜Judge Halts Pentagon's Retaliation Against Anthropic, New Model Leak, and IPO Plan Revealed on the Same Day

California federal judge Rita Lin ruled on Thursday to temporarily halt the Pentagon's decision to list Anthropic as a "supply chain risk." The ruling stated that the Pentagon's reason for labeling Anthropic was that the company "expressed hostility through the media." Judge Lin characterized this logic as "Orwellian," objecting to categorizing a U.S. company as an adversary.

The conflict began when Anthropic refused to use Claude for autonomous weapons and domestic surveillance. The Pentagon then invoked military power usually directed at foreign hostile forces, ordering all federal agencies to cease using Claude. The court's position was very straightforward: an AI company faced political retaliation for saying "no," which is legally unsustainable.

On the same day, Fortune discovered that an Anthropic CMS misconfiguration exposed a new model codenamed Mythos, which Anthropic confirmed to be a "leap in capability." Bloomberg reported that Anthropic is discussing an IPO as early as October, with a valuation of $380 billion. While the court blocked political retaliation, the market simultaneously witnessed technological advancement and signals of going public.

(Source: Fortune / Bloomberg / The Information / The Verge / CNBC / U.S. Federal Court)

2｜Huawei Ascend 950PR Secures Orders from ByteDance and Alibaba, SMIC's Chip Supply to Iran Exposed

Reuters exclusively reported on Thursday that Huawei's next-generation AI chip Ascend 950PR performed well in customer tests, and ByteDance and Alibaba are planning to place orders. The computing power reaches 1.56 petaflops (FP4), twice that of NVIDIA's special version H20 for China. Huawei plans to ship approximately 750,000 units this year, with mass production by the end of April.

On the same day, another exclusive Reuters article stated that U.S. officials indicated that SMIC has been providing chip manufacturing equipment and technical training to the Iranian military for about a year. These two threads intersect with the earlier chip smuggling case, showing a dual relaxation in the U.S. export control system: on one end, China's alternative chips have reached the practical threshold, and on the other, a technology assistance network has formed among sanctioned entities.

NeurIPS 2026 has tied paper submission for the first time to U.S. sanctions, with the China Computer Federation calling for a boycott and senior researchers from Alibaba and Tencent publicly resigning from the conference. Decoupling is now seeping into the most fundamental layer of technical exchange.

(Source: Reuters / CNBC / SCMP / China Computer Federation)

3｜Pentagon Considers Deploying Thousands to the Middle East, Vance Named Chief Negotiator for Iran Talks

Axios reports that the White House and the Pentagon are considering deploying at least 10,000 ground troops to the Middle East, joining the already deployed 5,000 Marines and the 82nd Airborne Division paratroopers. The target deployment location is likely within striking distance of Iran and the island of Qeshm. Qeshm Island handles 90% of Iran's oil exports and is referred to by Trump as Iran's "crown jewel."

The troop surge and negotiation window are advancing in parallel. Trump announced on Thursday the extension of the deadline for striking Iranian energy facilities by 10 days until April 6. Tehran has signaled a preference for dialogue with Vance over Vitek and Kushner. Trump officially confirmed Vance as the chief negotiator during Thursday's cabinet meeting.

The troop surge and deadline extension may seem contradictory but are logically consistent. The troop deployment is military preparation for island seizure, while the negotiation window provides Iran with a final concession space. Vance taking over the negotiations itself is a signal of concession, as he is the most skeptical person in the cabinet about this war. (Continued Morning Post reports)

(Source: Axios / Stars and Stripes / NPR / Pentagon)

4｜OpenAI's Ad Pilot Hits Billion-Dollar Annualized Revenue, Yet Enterprise Customers Are Accelerating Churn

OpenAI's ChatGPT ad pilot has reached over a billion dollars in annualized revenue in just six weeks since its U.S. launch. Over 600 advertisers have joined, with about 85% of free users exposed to ads, but the actual engagement rate in daily active users is less than 20%. OpenAI is testing expansion to Canada, Australia, and New Zealand.

While consumer-side monetization is speeding up, the trend on the enterprise side is vastly different. The likelihood of enterprises choosing Anthropic for their first AI purchase is three times higher than OpenAI, with OpenAI's enterprise market share dropping from 50% to 27%. Ultraman issued an internal "Code Red" alert at the end of last year, planning to expand to 8,000 employees by year-end, cutting sidelines to focus on coding and enterprise products.

The billion-dollar ad revenue proves that the free user traffic monetization path has been established. However, what enterprise customers care about is not brand awareness but security, controllability, and customization, which happen to be the strengths of today's other key player, Anthropic. The divergence of the two AI business models has become particularly clear in a single day.

(Source: Reuters / The Information / CNBC)

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