The CIA director likened cutting-edge AI to nuclear weapons, saying AI is reshaping the nature of conflict.

(Washington/San Francisco Combined Dispatch) CIA Director John Ratcliffe vowed to ramp up the deployment of artificial intelligence (AI) and quantum computing technologies, emphasizing that the rapid development of emerging technologies is changing the geopolitical landscape.

Ratcliffe made a rare public address at a technology conference in Washington on Tuesday (June 30), pledging to restructure the CIA to more aggressively apply cutting-edge technologies. He warned that the United States must act quickly because competitors are also racing to develop artificial intelligence.

He likened the capabilities of artificial intelligence to "digital nuclear weapons," saying that AI is reshaping the nature of conflict.

In recent months, U.S. national security agencies have increasingly compared cutting-edge AI to nuclear weapons. Several think tanks have pointed out that this has evolved into a genuine technological "arms race," a contest between the United States and China and Russia.

Ratcliffe revealed that the CIA has made approximately 400 technology contract purchases in the past six months, with the goal of completing most of these transactions within six months, shortening the previous process of 24 months for procurement plus nine months for security review.

While Ratcliffe did not disclose any new contractors, he specifically praised SpaceX's capabilities and stated that early in his tenure, he had invited SpaceX founder Elon Musk, as well as executives from Amazon, Google, and Dell Technologies, to visit the CIA.

He said that to accelerate the deployment of AI, the CIA has strengthened communication with private companies, launched a new procurement framework, and promoted data standardization within the agency.

Bloomberg points out that Ratcliffe's remarks are largely consistent with the tone of a previous memo released by Trump. That memo instructed government agencies to rapidly adopt technologies from multiple vendors while ensuring uninterrupted technical services.

Ratcliffe also said that despite the active adoption of AI, the CIA's decision-making will still be dominated by humans, "only humans can decide the right direction."

Anthropic will restore access to Fable5 and Mythos5. On the same day, the US AI company Anthropic announced on social media that the US government had lifted restrictions on its high-performance AI models Fable 5 and Mythos 5, and that the company would soon restore access to these models globally.

In recent weeks, the Trump administration has restricted major U.S. technology companies from releasing advanced models, including Anthropic's, citing national security concerns. Some researchers worry that these models could be exploited to circumvent cybersecurity safeguards.

U.S. Commerce Secretary Lutnick sent a letter to Anthropic on Tuesday, expressing the government's satisfaction with the company's close cooperation in taking security precautions to address the risks associated with the Fable 5 and Mythos 5.

Anthropic's competitor, OpenAI, also restricted the release of its next-generation flagship model, GPT-5.6, to a small group of government-approved "trusted partners" last week under pressure from the White House.

Source: [Lianhe Zaobao] (https://www.zaobao.com/news/world/story20260701-9296449)