The UK Government has signed a new partnership with Palantir to help the military develop the latest digital tools and harness AI technology.
It will see Palantir invest up to £1.5 billion to help make the UK a defence innovation leader and create up to 350 new jobs.
The new partnership, signed by Defence Secretary John Healey, will help the UK military develop the latest digital tools and harness AI technology to accelerate decision makin and improve targeting. Palantir has also announced plans for London to become the base for Palantir’s European defence business, establishing Britain as a hub for defence technology innovation across Europe.
The arrangement will also support the growth of British defence tech companies across the supply chain, with Palantir helping to mentor and develop UK companies. This will include helping British defence start-ups and SMEs to expand into US markets, including an offering on a pro bono basis.
Defence Secretary John Healey MP said:
“This partnership is a major vote of confidence in UK leadership in defence, data and AI technology and as an ideal location for companies to invest and expand.
“By harnessing the power of AI, we will boost the effectiveness of our Armed Forces, ensuring they have the tools they need to keep the British people safe.
“The work will unlock billions of pounds of investment into UK innovation, creating hundreds of skilled UK jobs and making defence the leading edge of innovation in NATO.”
Palantir and the UK military will work together to transform lethality on the battlefield, supporting the development of data and AI-powered capabilities across data analysis, intelligence, decision support and targeting systems. This will see the UK Government delivering on a key theme of the Strategic Defence Review and Defence Industrial Strategy: to make the UK the leading edge of innovation in NATO.
Some of these new capabilities will support development of what is known as the ‘kill chain’, whereby military planners fuse a wide range of information and data sources from open source and military platforms to provide military commanders with faster options for attacking an enemy target. This would form an element of the Digital Targeting Web, announced in the Strategic Defence Review, which will have a large and diverse supplier ecosystem.
Cutting-edge data and AI tech, which is already being proven on the battlefield in Ukraine, speeds up this planning by fusing together sensitive information to rapidly produce a plan to target and attack the enemy.
The partnership will identify opportunities with UK defence which could be worth up to £750 million over the next five years.
Palantir CEO Alex Karp said:
“This partnership reflects our deep commitment to the UK. It will see up to £750 million invested in the most advanced AI-enabled defence technology, honed on the battlefield in Ukraine and used extensively by the US and NATO. It will reinforce the UK’s position as a major military force protecting the West from our adversaries. And it will underline the UK’s status as our largest presence outside of the US.”
Building on its existing UK workforce of around 1,000, Palantir has committed to hiring up to 200 new UK staff and up to 150 jobs in the broader UK defence technology sector to deliver Ministry of Defence programmes.
