Palantir partners with Microsoft to sell AI to the government
One of the classic problems of looking into a palantir was correctly interpreting what the viewer saw… | Image: The Verge
Palantir, the company named for the dangerous seeing-stones that tended to mislead their users, has announced a partnership with Microsoft to deliver services for classified networks in US defense and intelligence agencies.
“This is a first-of-its-kind, integrated suite of technology that will allow critical national security missions to operationalize Microsoft’s best-in-class large language models (LLMs) via Azure OpenAI Service within Palantir’s AI Platforms (AIP) in Microsoft’s government and classified cloud environments,” the announcement says.
Palantir is a data-analysis company that sucks down huge amounts of personal data to assist governments and companies with surveillance. It is somewhat unclear from the text of the announcement what services Palantir and Microsoft will offer. What we do know is that Microsoft’s Azure cloud services will integrate Palantir products. Previously, Azure incorporated OpenAI’s Chat-GPT4 into a “top secret” version of its software.
Palantir didn’t post its first annual profit until 2023
Palantir, the “AI arms dealer of the 21st century,” was co-founded by Peter Thiel and received seed funds from the CIA’s venture capital affiliate. Its clients include Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), assorted police departments, and private companies such as Sanofi, the pharma giant. It is also heavily integrated into the war effort in Ukraine. There are indications that the software can be used to choose bombing targets.
Despite its large client list, Palantir didn’t post its first annual profit until 2023. But the AI hype cycle has meant that Palantir’s “commercial business is exploding in a way we don’t know how to handle,” the company’s chief executive officer Alex Carp told Bloomberg in February. The majority of its business is from governments, including that of Israel — though the risk factors section of its annual filing notes that it does not and will not work with “the Chinese communist party.”
As of this writing, Palantir’s share price has surged more than 75 percent in 2024.
One of the classic problems of looking into a palantir was correctly interpreting what the viewer saw… | Image: The Verge
Palantir, the company named for the dangerous seeing-stones that tended to mislead their users, has announced a partnership with Microsoft to deliver services for classified networks in US defense and intelligence agencies.
“This is a first-of-its-kind, integrated suite of technology that will allow critical national security missions to operationalize Microsoft’s best-in-class large language models (LLMs) via Azure OpenAI Service within Palantir’s AI Platforms (AIP) in Microsoft’s government and classified cloud environments,” the announcement says.
Palantir is a data-analysis company that sucks down huge amounts of personal data to assist governments and companies with surveillance. It is somewhat unclear from the text of the announcement what services Palantir and Microsoft will offer. What we do know is that Microsoft’s Azure cloud services will integrate Palantir products. Previously, Azure incorporated OpenAI’s Chat-GPT4 into a “top secret” version of its software.
Palantir, the “AI arms dealer of the 21st century,” was co-founded by Peter Thiel and received seed funds from the CIA’s venture capital affiliate. Its clients include Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), assorted police departments, and private companies such as Sanofi, the pharma giant. It is also heavily integrated into the war effort in Ukraine. There are indications that the software can be used to choose bombing targets.
Despite its large client list, Palantir didn’t post its first annual profit until 2023. But the AI hype cycle has meant that Palantir’s “commercial business is exploding in a way we don’t know how to handle,” the company’s chief executive officer Alex Carp told Bloomberg in February. The majority of its business is from governments, including that of Israel — though the risk factors section of its annual filing notes that it does not and will not work with “the Chinese communist party.”
As of this writing, Palantir’s share price has surged more than 75 percent in 2024.