March 4 (Reuters) - A Big Tech industry group on Wednesday expressed concern to U.S. Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth about his declaring AI company Anthropic a supply-chain risk, saying it creates uncertainty for companies that could threaten the military's access to the best products and services.

"We are concerned by recent reports regarding the Department of War's consideration of imposing a supply chain risk designation in response to a procurement dispute," the Information Technology Industry Council, whose members include Nvidia, Amazon.com and Apple, said in a letter dated Wednesday that did not directly name Anthropic. 

Last week, capping off a heated weeks-long dispute with Anthropic over technology guardrails on Claude tools used by the military, President Donald Trump announced a federal agency-wide ban on the company with a six-month phaseout period and Hegseth ordered Pentagon suppliers to purge Anthropic's prized AI tools from their supply chains.

The letter, sent to Hegseth on Wednesday, also stated that the declaration threatens "to undermine the government's access to the best-in-class products and services from American companies that serve all agencies and components of the federal government."

The Department of Defense did not immediately respond to a request for comment. 

The letter is the first significant support Anthropic has seen from the tech industry, a group of companies that includes its investors, suppliers and customers.