Anthropic sued the Defense Department and other federal agencies after the Pentagon announced last week it would label the AI company as a threat to national security and ban the use of its products for defense purposes.

In its filing, Anthropic alleged that the federal government's moves to ban its technology go beyond a normal contract dispute and instead represent an "unlawful campaign of retaliation."

The suit comes after months of increasingly tense negotiations between the company and the Pentagon over how the military should be able to use Anthropic's advanced AI systems. CEO Dario Amodei had sought stronger guarantees from the administration that its systems would not be used for mass domestic surveillance or direct use in deadly autonomous weapons, while the Pentagon sought to use the systems for "all lawful use."