Pentagon Contracts With Leading AI Companies: Artificial Intelligence as Critical National Security Infrastructure

On May 1, 2026, the Pentagon signed agreements with seven AI companies — SpaceX, OpenAI, Google, NVIDIA, Reflection, Microsoft, and Amazon — to deploy their advanced technologies across classified networks and expand military access to their products. 

The move marks the transition of the AI sector into a new configuration of relations between the state and private business, one that is being mirrored across two competing jurisdictions.

The United States and China are simultaneously elevating artificial intelligence to the status of critical national-security infrastructure on the level of satellite communications, nuclear energy, or semiconductor manufacturing — though each is pursuing a different strategy for managing that transition.