With artificial intelligence reshaping national security, the economy and how government works, few companies embody both the potential and the peril of this transformation more than Palantir.
Founded in the shadow of 9/11, it promised to harness the power of data analytics to assist Western democracies in the Global War on Terror. Named after the all-seeing magic stones from The Lord of the Rings, it was soon supporting the American military and intelligence services in their missions.
Critics might note that the stones were wielded by Saruman, one of the villains of the series. Palantir might point out that the stones themselves were only a tool, with the morality of their use dependent on those who controlled them. From those secretive start-up origins, Palantir evolved into a global power player, with contracts worth billions of dollars signed with a range of Western governments.
Co-founded in 2003 by the libertarian tech billionaire Peter Thiel, the company was explicitly created to develop digital tools to defend the United States and its allies from existential threats. Early funding came in part from the CIA’s venture arm, In-Q-Tel. From the outset, Palantir positioned itself not as a neutral software provider but as a patriotic bulwark against terrorism and America’s foes.
A surge in European influence
The company’s core platforms are Gotham, for government or military use, and Foundry, for commercial and health applications. They fuse siloed datasets into actionable intelligence, allowing users to make faster, smarter decisions. Its stock market valuation has soared, at times eclipsing that of traditional defence giants like Lockheed Martin by a factor of nearly four. Its tools have reportedly contributed to high-profile operations, including aspects of the US strike on Iranian nuclear facilities in June 2025.
Increasingly, they are involved in the civilian market as well, and nowhere is that expanding role more visible than in the United Kingdom, where the company has won multiple contracts. The most prominent is the £330 million deal with the National Health Service NHS England to build and operate the Federated Data Platform (FDP), awarded in 2023. This seven-year contract aims to integrate patient records, operational data and research across the health service. Proponents say it will lead to faster diagnoses, reduced waiting times and more efficient resource allocation
Beyond the NHS, Palantir holds significant Ministry of Defence contracts. In late 2025, it was awarded a £240 million, three-year enterprise agreement to provide data analytics capabilities supporting strategic, tactical and live operational decisions. This followed earlier partnerships and was secured via a defence and security exemption, bypassing standard procurement.
Palantir also works with multiple British police forces, using its software for investigations, predictive analytics and risk identification. Louis Mosley, who runs Palantir UK, claimed its tools helped reduce domestic murders in Bedfordshire to zero in a recent 12-month period by flagging at-risk individuals in relationships with domestic abuse present.
Germany presents a markedly different picture. Palantir’s expansion there has been slower and far more contentious, shaped by strict constitutional and data protection constraints. Its Gotham-based systems are used by police in several federal states, including Bavaria, Hesse and North Rhine-Westphalia, where they integrate vast datasets, from police records to administrative databases, to identify patterns and potential suspects.
Supporters within law enforcement argue the software represents a step change in investigative capability, enabling faster analysis of complex cases and, in some instances, the prevention of serious crime. But its deployment has triggered sustained legal and political resistance. Germany’s Federal Constitutional Court ruled in 2023 that aspects of its use were unconstitutional, citing insufficient safeguards for citizens’ data.
This tension between capability and constraint becomes even more pronounced when Palantir’s technology is deployed beyond the civilian sphere.
Palantir’s AI drives Ukraine’s battlefield targeting
Palantir’s activities in Ukraine illustrate its willingness to deploy its capabilities at the sharp end of conflict. In June 2022, mere months after Russia’s full-scale invasion, CEO Alex Karp became the first leader of a major Western corporation to visit Kyiv. Meeting President Volodymyr Zelenskyy in a fortified bunker, Karp offered Palantir’s services gratis and pledged to open an office in the capital.
The company delivered: its AI-driven platforms analyse satellite imagery, drone footage, open-source intelligence and battlefield reports to generate targeting options for Ukrainian forces. Karp has publicly stated that Palantir software is ‘responsible for most of the targeting in Ukraine’, enabling precision strikes on Russian tanks, artillery and logistics.
Beyond kinetic operations, its technology also supports war crimes documentation for the Prosecutor General’s Office, collating evidence of alleged Russian atrocities involving over 78,000 cases.
This level of reach has produced critics, especially those who fear that big data inherently empowers authoritarianism and mass surveillance. But Karp maintains that Palantir’s work actually protects civil liberties. Without advanced analytics to thwart terrorists, he contends, repeated outrages would inevitably fuel far-right backlash and erode democratic norms. Far from undermining privacy, Karp insists the company’s sophisticated tools enable targeted, efficient interventions that minimise broad-brush intrusions.
The promise and peril of Palantir’s all-seeing technology
Yet these assurances have not quelled criticism. Amnesty International has warned of a ‘high risk’ that Palantir contributes to human rights violations, citing its long-standing work with US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) to identify individuals for deportation, as well as predictive policing contracts in Los Angeles that critics say reinforce racial biases. In the UK, human rights and health groups urged NHS trusts to reject the deal with Palantir over fears that data could be misused. So far, such concerns have not materialised, while Palantir sees its support for law enforcement as a positive.
To some, Palantir represents the future of AI-assisted government: faster threat detection, optimised public services and a technological edge against authoritarian regimes. Its success in Ukraine demonstrates how private innovation can amplify democratic resilience. To others, it risks normalising pervasive surveillance, entrenching biases and blurring the line between public duty and corporate profit. As Karp and Mosley insist, sophisticated software can reconcile security with liberty, but only if democratic oversight remains robust and transparent. The all-seeing stone is not inherently evil. It is up to those who wield it.
