Users in Houthi-Held Yemen Tried to Develop Advanced Weapons With AI, Anthropic Says
Anthropic has discovered that users in Houthi-controlled Yemen attempted to utilize its Claude AI model to develop advanced weapons, including hypersonic missiles and mobile-phone-controlled warheads. Despite these efforts, the users failed to produce a functional device, but the incident highlights the Houthis’ growing technological sophistication and reliance on open-source AI tools, raising concerns about the potential for increased weapon development and disruption of vital shipping routes.
Anthropic, the developer of the prominent Claude chatbot, has revealed that users in northern Yemen, controlled by the Houthi rebels, attempted to leverage the AI model for military development. The company identified a cell in the region pursuing three distinct weapons programs, including a multi-variant missile capable of gliding at hypersonic speeds and a warhead utilizing mobile phone hardware for mid-course maneuvering. Anthropic stated that these users had already built an offline simulation tool kit without utilizing Claude or any other computing platforms.
Despite these efforts, the company noted that the users failed to produce a functional device. The incident underscores the Houthis’ increasing technological capabilities, a perception that challenges the common view of them as solely relying on Iranian weaponry. Anthropic shared its findings with private and public partners.
Hazam al-Assad, a member of the Houthis’ political bureau, dismissed the claims, stating that the group possesses “modern, diverse and developed production capabilities and technology.” He asserted that all weapons are used for self-defense, and that they have “accumulated over the period of Saudi aggression on Yemen.”
Iran has denied providing weapons to the Houthis, despite evidence of Iranian-made weaponry found on the battlefield and seized from shipments bound for Yemen. The Houthis are increasingly threatening key shipping routes in the Red Sea, launching attacks on Saudi oil facilities and tankers, and disrupting trade through the Strait of Hormuz.
Anthropic’s report comes as part of a series of disclosures regarding the global misuse of its AI platforms, including instances of state-sponsored groups spreading propaganda and attempts to develop biological weapons. Trevor Ball, a weapons analyst, commented that while the Houthis may be “looking into hypersonic missiles by asking Claude,” they lack the production capabilities to actually build them, noting that U.S. hypersonic missiles are still in testing.
Adam Baron, a Yemen-focused researcher at New America, emphasized that the Houthis are “an incredible — and deepening — amount of institutional tech savvy,” highlighting their use of social media and their ability to capitalize on transferred expertise. The Houthis are known to possess a sophisticated arsenal, including Iranian-made cruise and ballistic missiles with a range of over 2,000 kilometers (1,200 miles) and unmanned submarines used in attacks.