(The Epoch Times)—The U.S. military is set to expand its artificial intelligence (AI) toolset in a new partnership with Elon Musk’s xAI service.
Musk’s xAI service owns the Grok family of generative AI chatbots, which are available on the X social media platform. Those Grok-based models are now set to join the military’s GenAI.mil platform of artificial intelligence tools, which the Pentagon launched earlier this month.
The xAI models will integrate with GenAI.mil in early 2026, according to a Dec. 22 Pentagon press statement.
The Pentagon said xAI’s models will allow both uniformed and civilian personnel within the Department of War to securely handle so-called controlled unclassified information in their daily workflows. The term “controlled unclassified information” describes materials that are not considered classified, but which are not marked for public release.
“Users will also gain access to real‑time global insights from the X platform, providing War Department personnel with a decisive information advantage,” the Pentagon said in a statement.
On Dec. 9, the Pentagon announced the launch of GenAI.mil as the central platform for onboarding different artificial intelligence models and capabilities into the military’s various workflows. This artificial intelligence platform launched with Google’s Gemini for Government AI service, but the Pentagon said from the start that it planned for “several frontier AI capabilities to be housed on GenAI.mil.”
At launch, GenAI.mil was made available for desktops used at the Pentagon and across military installations around the world.
“The War Department will continue scaling an AI ecosystem built for speed, security, and decision superiority,” the Pentagon said Monday.
Artificial intelligence was one of six critical technologies identified by the Pentagon last month, alongside quantum computing, biomanufacturing, directed energy weapons, hypersonic weapons, and innovations for conducting logistical operations in contested spaces.
“We are pushing all of our chips in on artificial intelligence as a fighting force. The Department is tapping into America’s commercial genius, and we’re embedding generative AI into our daily battle rhythm,” Secretary of War Pete Hegseth said earlier this month.
In a company statement on Monday, xAI described its venture with the Pentagon as a long-term partnership.
“In addition to Enterprise use cases, xAI is bringing the power of Frontier AI and real-time insights directly to the warfighter,” the company said. “Through an ongoing, long-term partnership with the DoW and other mission partners, xAI will make available a family of government-optimized foundation models to support classified operational workloads.”
This summer, the Pentagon awarded contracts to xAI, Google, Anthropic, and OpenAI to develop artificial intelligence capabilities for the military. Those contracts each came with a $200 million ceiling.
