The Download: The Pentagon’s new AI plans, and next-gen nuclear reactors

MIT Technology Review
by Thomas Macaulay
March 18, 2026
2 views
5 min read

Quick Insights

The Bottom Line

Pentagon plans classified AI training environments; security risks and trustworthiness disputes emerge.

How This Affects You

Defense contractors, AI company employees, and military personnel face new security protocols and potential system reliability concerns.

AI Summary

# Summary The Pentagon plans to establish secure environments allowing generative AI companies to train military-specific models on classified data—a significant escalation from current uses like Anthropic's Claude for analyzing targets in Iran—though the arrangement presents unique security risks by embedding sensitive intelligence into the models themselves. In related developments, US officials are seeking to oust Anthropic from government agencies, citing trustworthiness concerns with warfighting systems, while Microsoft is considering legal action against Amazon and OpenAI's cloud partnership. Separately, new nuclear reactor designs entering deployment will require novel waste management solutions due to their different materials and engineering requirements.

What's Being Done

Pentagon establishing secure AI training environments; officials pursuing Anthropic removal from government agencies; new nuclear reactor designs entering deployment.

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