The Pentagon asked two major defense contractors on Wednesday to provide an assessment of their reliance on Anthropic's AI model, Claude — a first step toward a potential designation of Anthropic as a "supply chain risk," Axios has learned.

Why it matters: That penalty is usually reserved for companies from adversarial countries, such as Chinese tech giant Huawei.

• Using it to punish a leading American tech firm, particularly one on which the military itself is currently reliant, would be unprecedented.

Driving the news: The Pentagon reached out to Boeing and Lockheed Martin on Wednesday to ask about their exposure to Anthropic, two sources with knowledge of those conversations said.

• Boeing Defense, Space and Security, a division of Boeing, has no active contracts with Anthropic, a spokesperson said.
• A Boeing executive told Axios: "We sought their partnership [in the past] and ultimately could not come to an agreement. They were somewhat reluctant to work with the defense industry."
• A Lockheed spokesperson confirmed the company was contacted by the Defense Department regarding an analysis of its exposure and reliance on Anthropic ahead of "a potential supply chain risk declaration."
• The Pentagon plans to reach out to "all the traditional primes" — meaning the major contractors that supply things like fighter jets and weapons systems — about whether and how they use Claude, a source familiar told Axios.