This is the Daily Tech News for Monday, March 2nd, 2026. We tell you what you need to know.

We try to give you some important context and help each other understand.

MWC Barcelona is underway, which means loads of new mobile gear to talk about.

And we also catch you up on the U.S. Department of Defense's switch from Anthropic to open AI.

Yeah, that's a whole thing.

I'm Tom Merritt.

And I'm Rob Dunwood.

Let's start with what you need to know with that big story.

Ah, yes.

The U.S. Department of Defense canceled its contract with Anthropic, or at least said

it will cancel its contract with Anthropic, after a dispute over usage. DoD wanted to use

anthropic tools for any legal reason, while Anthropics contract forbade using them for

particularly mass surveillance or autonomous lethal systems.

DoD was not prepared to immediately do either one of those, but it wanted the option.

It didn't want the option ruled out.

We don't know exactly how this turned into a big public fight, but it did.

Bloomberg reported that Anthropic wanted to develop autonomous weapons, wasn't against that idea entirely, but it did not feel that its models were ready.

So a six-month phase-out has allegedly begun, and Anthropic said it would work to enable a smooth transition to new providers.

Department of Defense Secretary Pete Hegsef said he would declare Anthropic a supply

chain risk, which would mean no company that does business with the U.S. military could also do

business with Anthropic. That's usually reserved for foreign entities. And then OpenAI announced

Friday it reached an agreement to deploy its models on the DOD's classified

...