The world just officially entered a new Cold War.
In an unprecedented move signaling a new technological Cold War, the U.S. government has barred foreign nationals from accessing Anthropic's most advanced AI models, forcing the startup to pull them completely offline.
The U.S. Commerce Department issued an emergency export-control directive prohibiting foreign nationals—both abroad and inside the United States—from accessing Anthropic’s newly released Fable 5 and Mythos 5 models.
Strikingly, the order even banned Anthropic's own foreign-born, U.S.-based employees from using or working on the software. Facing the impossible task of selectively policing its global user base under strict federal compliance, the Silicon Valley AI company chose to abruptly disable both advanced systems for all customers worldwide.
While federal officials cited national security risks and potential safeguard bypasses as the rationale, Anthropic publicly disputed the severity of the claims, arguing that similar capabilities are already widely available on rival platforms.
This aggressive regulatory intervention marks a dramatic escalation in Washington’s efforts to treat frontier AI as a restricted, state-controlled national security asset. Analysts warn that treating commercial software like munitions could stifle domestic innovation, further accelerating a geopolitical tech race where global open-source models may soon outpace heavily restricted American systems.
source: Associated Press. (2026). Anthropic says it has taken its latest AI models offline to comply with new export controls.