Anthropic halts new AI tools after US security concerns

In a statement, the company said the US government had ordered restrictions on access to its Fable 5 and Mythos 5 models for all foreign nationals, including employees, both inside and outside the United States.

“The US government, citing national security authorities, has issued an export control directive to suspend all access to Fable 5 and Mythos 5 by any foreign national,” the statement said.

As a result, Anthropic said it is “abruptly disabling” both models for all customers to ensure full compliance with the directive. The company clarified that access to its other AI models will remain unaffected.

“We received the directive from the government today at 5:21 pm (ET). The letter did not provide specific details of its national security concern,” the statement added.

According to Anthropic, the government’s concerns relate to a potential method of bypassing or “jailbreaking” the models. The company said it reviewed a demonstration of the technique and found only a small number of previously known, minor vulnerabilities.

“These vulnerabilities appear relatively simple, and we have found that other publicly available models can also identify them without requiring a bypass,” the statement noted.

What is Jailbreaking?

According to cybersecurity firm Kaspersky, jailbreaking refers to the process of exploiting security limitations in electronic devices or software systems to gain root-level access and install unauthorized applications or features.

The term is used because it represents “freeing” a system from its built-in restrictions or “jail,” allowing users deeper control over its operating system.

Sridhar Vembu Calls for Sovereign AI Push

Following the development, Zoho Corporation co-founder Sridhar Vembu said the incident highlights the end of globalisation and the urgent need for India to develop sovereign AI capabilities.

Reacting on X, he wrote that “technology is the ultimate weapon” and that national sovereignty and security now depend heavily on technological independence.

“Globalisation is dead and Bharat must find her own way ahead,” Vembu said, urging India to deepen research and development in artificial intelligence.

He also pointed out the massive cost barriers in competing at the frontier of AI, citing the need for “$100+ billion scale investment” and restricted access to advanced GPUs required for training large models.