This Week in Dual-Use
Anthropic released a powerful new version of its Claude AI model, called Mythos. Dario Amodei, Anthropic’s CEO, said it is too powerful to be made generally available. Instead he will allow only a few trusted companies to use it.
This Week in Dual-Use
SpaceXis apparently set to file for an IPO as soon as this week to raise $75B at a $1.75T valuation. That would make it the largest IPO in history, beating that of Saudi Aramco (~$29.4B) in 2019.
This Week in Dual-Use
Iran is to missiles what Ukraine is to drones. Those were the words of my Lebanese friend who sent me a few WhatsApp videos over the weekend. They featured different types of Iranian missile raining down on Israel. This week’s newsletter will therefore be an Iran War special edition.
This Week in Dual-Use
Pete Hegseth has threatened to list Anthropic as a ‘supply chain risk’, meaning no defence contractor could use it. This comes after Anthropic tried to set conditions for what its AI could be used for. The red line for Anthropic seems to be around the use of AI for final targeting decisions without human intervention.
This Week in Dual-Use
I was at the Munich Security Conference last week. There was a palpable difference in tone compared to the year before. Despite the relatively conciliatory speech by US Secretary of State Marco Rubio, Europe is now firmly in a ‘post-Greenland’ mentality.
This Week in Dual-Use
Blue Origin, an American developer of space launch technology owned by Jeff Bezos, is rolling out a satellite internet service called TeraWave, taking direct aim at Starlink.
This Week in Dual-Use
Britain will begin rolling out a new suite of undersea surveillance and counter-submarine capabilities under Atlantic Bastion. The project will combine autonomous vessels, AI-enabled detection networks and existing naval and air platforms.
This Week in Dual-Use
Taiwan has lifted the lid on its T-Dome concept, an air-defence network modelled on Israel’s Iron Dome and the American Golden Dome project.
This Week in Dual-Use
The UK government has awarded a contract to fund a new laser that can shoot down high-speed drones. The £316m will be used to develop MBDA’s DragonFire laser at its UK headquarters in Stevenage.
This Week in Dual-Use
Thirteen British sites have apparently been identified for ‘energetics’ factories, as the government faces fresh calls to end its reliance on US munitions.