How big tech is building a military–industrial complex in the age of AI

What happened: A Nature review covers two 2026 books on the AI arms race: Steve Feldstein's Bytes and Bullets and Sharon Weinberger's Valley of Death, which traces how the Pentagon helped build Silicon Valley and now seeks to reforge ties with tech founders. Key numbers: CIA sought as many as 20,000 NeXT workstations; Apple Why it matters: Weinberger argues CIA purchases saved NeXT, enabling the Apple deal and the Mac and iPhone software lineage. She calls the evolving government-tech relationship the Pentagon-Silicon Complex, with firms like Anduril competing against Lockheed Martin.

A Nature review covers two 2026 books on the AI arms race: Steve Feldstein's Bytes and Bullets and Sharon Weinberger's Valley of Death, which traces how the Pentagon helped build Silicon Valley and now seeks to reforge ties with tech founders.

Weinberger argues CIA purchases saved NeXT, enabling the Apple deal and the Mac and iPhone software lineage. She calls the evolving government-tech relationship the Pentagon-Silicon Complex, with firms like Anduril competing against Lockheed Martin.