Palantir Awarded $463M USSOCOM AI Contract
Justin Siken06/05/2023
Contract Award Defense Technology
HigherGov
Palantir Technologies Awarded $463M USSOCOM Artificial Intelligence Contract
Palantir Technologies announced today that it was awarded a five-year contract worth up to $463 million from the US Special Operations Command (USSOCOM) to deliver technology to support enterprise capabilities including artificial intelligence. Palantir's stock rose 4.9% on the news.
The scope of the contract covers development and sustainment efforts for Palantir within the overall ecosystem of programs under the Program Executive Office (PEO) Special Operations Forces Digital Applications (SDA) portfolio. This contract looks to support PEO SDA’s programs by bringing Palantir's technology into the Modular Open System Approach all of PEO SDA's portfolio programs use.
Through this contract, Palantir helps USSOCOM parse petabytes of data to enable decision-making in order to maintain a competitive advantage against adversaries. According to Palantir, innovations in its software include advancements in Large Language Models (LLMs) to reduce cognitive load on warfighters and commanders and advancements in edge processing and edge artificial intelligence to maximize the warfighter's ability to integrate and utilize real-time information.
Contract Expands Palantir's Existing Work with USSOCOM
The approximately $90 million per year ceiling on this latest contract represents a potential increase in the scope of Palantir's work with USSOCOM, which has averaged $50-60 million per year since 2016. This latest award is a continuation of the two-year $112 million USSOCOM Mission Command Platform contract awarded to Palantir in May 2021 and the five-year $277.5 million contract with USSOCOM that ran from May 2016 to May 2021.
History of Disclosed USSOCOM / Palantir Obligations
HigherGov Analysis
While the annual value of the contract represents less than 10% of the $1 billion in government revenue (including for state and local and undisclosed federal awards) Palantir reported in 2022, the expansion of the contract shows the growing importance of artificial intelligence within the DoD and that Palantir may continue to grow existing contracts even as the DoD looks to encourage increased involvement from competing artificial intelligence platforms.
While not explicitly stated in the latest announcements by Palantir or the Department of Defense, previous iterations of this contract leveraged Palantir's Gotham platform, which is a commercially-available, AI-ready operating system that improves and accelerates decisions for operators across roles and domains. Palantir has significantly grown its government business since 2016 when it successfully won a lawsuit against the Army that required the government to consider commercial products, such as the Gotham platform.
Palantir Statement on Partnership with USSOCOM
In announcing the new award, Akash Jain, President of Palantir USG said, "Our partnership [with USSOCOM] is an example of converting software innovation into real battlefield advantage. USSOCOM is at the forefront of adopting edge technology." "Just as they are the pointy end of the spear on the battlefield, they often find themselves playing that same role in innovation. We look forward to helping the command maintain its decision advantage into the next era of competition, and are deeply appreciative of the opportunity to continue serving this critical community."
