Anthropic, the US company behind the AI model Claude, has suspended access to its two most advanced models, Fable 5 and Mythos 5, for all users worldwide, including in India, after the US government ordered it to deny access to all foreign nationals on national security grounds.
The directive, a US official confirmed, came from the Commerce Department and was reportedly triggered by concerns that Fable 5 could be used to find software vulnerabilities or access other illegal information.
Anthropic pushed back on the US government's directive, saying it had reviewed the technique at the centre of the speculation and found it surfaced only a handful of minor, already-known vulnerabilities that other publicly available models can find too.
The company warned that if this standard was applied across the industry, it would essentially halt all new model deployments for all frontier model providers.
The suspension is the latest turn in an Anthropic-US government feud that has been building for months, with the company's relationship with the US government dating back to the summer of 2024.
Anthropic has filed two federal lawsuits against the defence department, alleging that the 'supply chain risk' label was applied improperly and amounts to retaliation for the company's protected speech on AI safety.
