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Welcome back Edger, The Pentagon just confirmed it used Anthropic's Claude during a live military raid — the first time a commercial LLM has been deployed in an active classified operation. Now Anthropic's $200M defense contract is on the line.
Today: AI goes to war, OpenAI's fastest coding model, and Google's reasoning benchmark record.
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The Essentials
1. OpenAI ships real-time coding with Codex Spark: OpenAI released GPT-5.3-Codex-Spark, a lightweight coding model that generates 1,000+ tokens per second — 15x faster than its flagship Codex. It's the first OpenAI model to run on Cerebras' Wafer Scale Engine 3 chips instead of Nvidia GPUs, cutting client-server roundtrip overhead by 80%. The tradeoff: Spark is smaller and less accurate on complex tasks, but lets developers steer the model mid-generation in real time. Available now for ChatGPT Pro subscribers ($200/month) with a 128k context window.
2. Gemini 3 Deep Think scores 84.6% on ARC-AGI-2: Google upgraded its specialized reasoning mode to hit 84.6% on ARC-AGI-2, the abstract reasoning benchmark where humans average ~60%. That's a 15.8-point lead over Claude Opus 4.6 (68.8%) and crushes GPT-5.2 (52.9%). Deep Think also earned Legendary Grandmaster status on Codeforces with a 3,455 Elo and gold medals across three 2025 Science Olympiads. It's not a new model — it's a reasoning layer that trades latency for accuracy by running multiple hypothesis rounds before answering.
3. Anthropic raises $30B at $380B valuation: Anthropic closed a $30 billion Series G led by GIC and Coatue — the second-largest private tech round ever, behind OpenAI's $40B+. The valuation more than doubled from $183B to $380 billion. The company now runs at $14 billion annual revenue, with Claude Code alone surpassing $2.5B. Eight of the Fortune 10 are Claude customers, and 4% of all GitHub public commits are now authored by Claude Code. OpenAI is reportedly seeking $100B more at an $830B valuation — the funding arms race has no ceiling in sight.
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The Headline
Claude went to war. Anthropic didn't get a say.
The raid. The Pentagon used Claude during the active military operation to capture Nicolás Maduro on January 3rd. Not in preparation. During the operation itself, deployed via Anthropic's partnership with Palantir. The exact role remains classified, though the military has previously used AI models for satellite imagery analysis and real-time intelligence processing. Dozens of Venezuelan and Cuban soldiers were killed. Anthropic's own usage policies explicitly prohibit its technology from being used to facilitate violence or conduct surveillance.
The only one on classified networks. Here's the part that matters: Anthropic is the only major AI company with models deployed on the Pentagon's classified systems. OpenAI, Google, and xAI all have Pentagon deals — but none of them have cleared the classified threshold yet. That makes Claude the default tool when the military's most sensitive work happens. A $200 million contract between Anthropic and the Pentagon is currently stalled because the company refuses to strip safety guardrails for autonomous weapons targeting and domestic surveillance. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth's message was blunt: "We will not employ AI models that won't allow you to fight wars."
Safety brand meets reality. The timing is brutal. Days before the raid news broke, Anthropic's Safeguards Research Team lead resigned, warning "the world is in peril" and citing internal pressures to "set aside what matters most." The company then poured $20 million into a political advocacy group backing AI regulation. And just hours earlier, it announced a $30B raise at $380B. The gap between Anthropic's safety-first branding and its only-company-on-classified-networks reality is now public. Every AI company will face this tension — Anthropic just got there first.
The Edge
Turn novelty into your competitive advantage: How to create your own talking head videos with AI
Go to Gemini, upload your photo, and use the prompt below to create a professional headshot.
Sample Prompt: Use the attached selfie to create a high-resolution professional headshot that keeps my facial features exactly the same. Add studio lighting, a soft neutral background, and formal professional attire suitable for a confident, approachable LinkedIn profile.
Then go to Wan AI , sign up, and click New Project.
Change media type from Video → Avatar.
Upload your headshot.
Record 10–15 seconds of clear audio (or type your script and choose a voice).
Click Generate to create your talking avatar.
Add more short clips if needed, then click Export to download your final video.
Productivity
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Ready to Use
30-Day Goal Execution Prompt
Prompt: Act as a high-performance strategist and execution coach.
My goal: {Insert your goal}
Create a realistic but challenging 30-day action plan.
Structure it like this:
1. Define Success
Rewrite the goal clearly and measurably.
Define what success looks like after 30 days.
List 3 key metrics to track.
2. Weekly Plan (4 Weeks)
Break it into:
Week 1: Foundation
Week 2: Momentum
Week 3: Stretch
Week 4: Results
For each week include:
Clear objective
Specific actions
Milestone by end of week
Common mistakes to avoid
3. Daily Execution
Create a simple daily structure:
1 main priority task
1 growth/discomfort task
1 habit to maintain
1 reflection question
4. Accountability
Weekly review format
Simple scorecard
What to do if I fall behind
Be direct and practical. No vague advice. Give concrete actions only.
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