The Pentagon awards $200 million contracts to Google, OpenAI, Anthropic, and xAI to develop AI systems for US defense and national security operations.

The Pentagon pulled senior Defense Department officials from the Aspen Security Forum on Monday, a day before the four-day summit in Colorado was set to begin. Why it matters: The bipartisan national security forum has attracted Republican and Democratic administration officials for years.

Top officials at the Pentagon office that played a key role in designing the bombs used in the strikes against Iran's nuclear facilities more than two weeks ago cannot say whether the weapons were successful in reaching the deeply buried bunkers.

The announcement comes days after Grok spewed antisemitic and racist statements to its users, including praise for Adolf Hitler and “the white man.” It also referred to itself as “MechaHitler.” The debacle kick-started a wave of celebration amongst online extremists, many of whom called for the creation of more hateful AI chatbots.

Shares of the little-known mining company soared on Thursday on news that the Pentagon would become the largest shareholder.

The U.S. Department of Defense plans to continue investing in critical minerals projects to ensure a diverse American supply of the building blocks for weapons and many electronics, a defense official told Reuters on Tuesday.

The Pentagon is set to spend nearly a billion dollars for AI with four major Silicon Valley tech firms, Google, xAI, OpenAI and Anthropic.

The Army is working on new tech, drones, autonomy, better decision-making, and more to deter and prepare for conflict with China.