March 10,Catherine Thorbecke, a columnist for the Bloomberg Opinion column, published an article on Tuesday discussing the lessons that the American AI company Anthropic can learn from TikTok and Huawei.The article stated that although TikTok and Huawei have been suppressed by the US government, they have become stronger.


Caption: Anthropic CEO Amodei

The following is the full text of the article:

Last week, the Pentagon formally notified Anthropic that its product had been identified as a "supply chain risk," the first time Washington has publicly slapped that label on a U.S. company.

This may sound like a death knell, but it's not. Such accusations, often leveled against Chinese technology companies, have become a pattern: often accompanied by a lot of publicity and little actual long-term damage.

Let’s start with TikTok. Washington has targeted the platform for more than five years, citing national security risks. Due to TikTok's Chinese background, the app initially faced the threat of being banned during Trump's first presidential term. Analysts have been bearish on its U.S. prospects for years. But then Trump changed his stance and, once again in the White House, launched a campaign to save it. TikTok’s scale and cultural influence make banning it politically untenable. Trump even bypassed Congress multiple times to buy time to reach an agreement. In the end, TikTok’s U.S. business remained unscathed, and so did its parent company ByteDance’s ambitions.

Meanwhile, Anthropic sued the Department of Defense on Monday over the "supply chain risk" determination and said the vast majority of its customers were not affected. While such a warning from the U.S. government could reduce Anthropic's federal contracts and scare away risk-averse partners, the company said the official notice ultimately had "limited impact." One problem for the Pentagon, however, is that Anthropic is not the bad company the public expects to punish.

The conflict comes as Anthropic has shown that it will not compromise on its security principles, and in particular will not allow its technology to be used for fully autonomous weapons or large-scale domestic surveillance. It was these problems that made people initially wary of AI. In fact, Anthropic's stance has actually enhanced the image of its CEO, Dario Amodei. Instead of isolating Anthropic, Washington made it look like one of the few technology companies that dared to say "no."

This reputational boost can already be quantified. Anthropic has seen a surge in downloads of its Claude app since its disagreement with the Pentagon became public, while downloads of rival ChatGPT have declined slightly.

The political winds are turning in Anthropic's favor. When half of Americans are more worried than excited about the growing popularity of AI (and only 10% say the opposite), turning against a security-focused company seems like a strange and ill-advised choice. Moreover, standing behind Anthropic is not only the public, but also the broad community of people in the technology industry.

TikTok is not the only company that has grown stronger under U.S. government crackdowns. Washington has also been targeting Huawei for nearly a decade, first viewing it as a supply chain risk and then imposing increasing restrictions. However, a research report released late last year by the Information Technology and Innovation Foundation, a Washington-based think tank, concluded thatCompared with when the United States began to try to curb Huawei's development, "Huawei is a more innovative company today."They argue that this lesson shows that the United States’ technological economic influence is “weaker than most people think.”

Anthropic is not Huawei or TikTok. This is a US company and has been working with the US government. But that's exactly the point. There's a reason the Department of Defense selected it in the first place: Anthropic offers some of the best technology on the market. Trump’s team may be able to attack TikTok while using it to reach young voters, but the stakes in AI are much higher. So don't be surprised when U.S. officials eventually realize they need Anthropic, too.

Meanwhile, everyone from members of Congress to national security hawks have warned that the United States cannot compete with China in AI while undermining its own innovation. Calling local champions a risk may satisfy the bureaucracy's urge to appear tough, but it will not help develop AI capabilities.

Washington can spend years sounding the national security alarm, only to quietly retreat once public opinion, political motivations, and actual reliance on the technology collide.

If TikTok, and even Huawei, can grow stronger under continued U.S. pressure, the most likely lesson here is that Washington will eventually realize that it cannot afford to marginalize leading AI companies and will find a dignified way to end it.