Palantir, Anduril form new alliance to merge AI capabilities for defense customers

Palantir and Anduril, vendors whose stars are rising in the defense tech world as the U.S. military pursues a sweeping array of new AI tools, announced a new partnership Friday aimed at combining some of their respective platforms for national security use cases.

The teaming initiative, which the companies are calling a “consortium,” is emerging as the firms separately continue to rack up big contract wins with the Pentagon.

For example, just this week, the Defense Department announced that its Chief Digital and AI Office (CDAO) awarded Anduril a $100 million other transaction agreement to scale its “edge data integration services capabilities” for the DOD. The company is also heavily involved in the Pentagon’s Replicator initiative, which aims to field thousands of drones and counter-drone systems to counter China’s military buildup in the Indo-Pacific.

Earlier this year, Palantir landed a $480 million contract award for its Maven Smart System, which is expected to give U.S. military combatant commands expanded access to data integration and artificial intelligence tools to aid battlespace awareness and targeting. The company also won a $178 million deal with the Army for the next phase of its Tactical Intelligence Targeting Access Node (TITAN) ground station program, which has been touted as the “first AI-defined vehicle.”

The Pentagon’s Defense Innovation Unit in April announced that it awarded deals to Anduril and Palantir to develop software system integration architectures that could aid the Army’s Robotic Combat Vehicle program.

Looking ahead, by pairing some of their respective capabilities via their new partnership announced Friday, the contractors aim to address two key challenges for the U.S. military: data readiness and processing data at scale, according to a joint press release.

“Our goal is to deliver the technological infrastructure, from the edge to the enterprise, that can enable our government and industry partners to transform America’s world-leading AI advancements into next-generation military and national security capabilities,” the firms stated in the release.

“Most useful national security data — government data that are collected and created by sensors, vehicles, weapons, and robots at the tactical edge — are not retained for AI training and algorithm development. Exabytes of defense data, indispensable for AI training and inferencing, are currently evaporating,” company officials wrote. “Even with national security data that are retained, no secure enterprise pipeline exists to turn that data into AI capabilities. U.S. companies are developing world-leading models but struggling to deploy them at scale with government partners for defense applications.”

To tackle these issues, executives plan to combine Anduril’s Lattice software platform and Menace family of expeditionary command, control, communications and computing (C4) platforms with Palantir capabilities such as its AI Platform (AIP) and Maven Smart System.

“Lattice connects directly with third-party defense systems at the edge, delivers autonomy to machine operations, securely distributes their information across a large-scale data mesh, and backhauls all tactical data into government enclaves for the purposes of AI training and inferencing. Menace devices are also purpose-built for the tactical edge, customized down to the silicon level for the unique requirements of national security operations in tactical environments — including, soon, next-generation encryption,” according to the release.

Integrating Palantir’s AIP with Anduril’s “edge capabilities” is being touted as a means of boosting the delivery of cloud-based data management and the development of artificial intelligence tools.

Migration to the cloud is a key component of the Pentagon’s IT modernization plans, as officials look to improve data-sharing, storage, handling and other tasks. The U.S. military also needs to leverage data to train its artificial intelligence systems.

Palantir’s AIP technologies will “enable the structuring, labeling, and preparation of defense data for AI training and development at all levels of classification, including Secure Compartmented Information (SCI) and Special Access Programs (SAP),” and help AI developers conduct “imitation and reinforcement learning,” according to the release issued Friday.

Via Palantir’s Maven Smart System, Pentagon officials aim to significantly grow the user base of technology that will enable the department to achieve a future warfighting construct known as Combined Joint All-Domain Command and Control (CJADC2), with a goal of better connecting the platforms, sensors and data streams of the U.S. military and key international partners to improve decision-making, operational effectiveness and efficiencies.

The Maven Smart System “provides an enterprise mission command platform that integrates large-scale operational data and utilizes AI-based capabilities to improve and accelerate human decision-making across joint missions, such as intelligence and fires,” per Friday’s release. “Similarly, Anduril’s Lattice software platform provides an edge-based mission autonomy platform that integrates directly with robotic systems and utilizes AI-based capabilities to automate and orchestrate their conduct of joint missions, such as air defense and reconnaissance. Anduril and Palantir are joining these complementary systems together, providing a seamless operational capability from the edge to the enterprise that serves as a deployment platform for new AI applications that anyone can build. This platform is already in place and in use by Anduril and Palantir for their own corporate purposes and with government contracts that enables this work to begin immediately.”

Other industry partners may be invited to join the consortium in the future, the document noted.

Meanwhile, the forthcoming inauguration of President-elect Donald Trump and Vice President-elect JD Vance next month could be a further boon for Palantir and Anduril, especially if it leads to an increase in defense spending for military modernization efforts.

“My big league support for Donald Trump is no secret,” Anduril founder Palmer Luckey wrote in a post on X in May.

Peter Thiel, who co-founded Palantir, has ties with JD Vance.

“The growth of our business is accelerating, and our financial performance is exceeding expectations as we meet an unwavering demand for the most advanced artificial intelligence technologies from our U.S. government and commercial customers,” Palantir CEO Alex Karp wrote in a letter to shareholders published Nov. 4, the day before the presidential election.

As of the morning of Dec. 6, Palantir’s stock has shot up more than 30% over the past month in the wake of Trump’s victory, according to Forbes.