Palantir Lands $10 Billion Army Software and Data Contract (cnbc.com) 23
Palantir has secured a massive $10 billion contract with the U.S. Army to unify 75 contracts into a single AI-focused enterprise framework, streamlining procurement and enhancing military readiness. CNBC reports: The agreement creates a "comprehensive framework for the Army's future software and data needs" that provides the government with purchasing flexibility and removes contract-related fees and procurement timelines, according to a release. Palantir co-founder and CEO Alex Karp has been a vocal proponent of protecting U.S. interests and joining forces on AI to fend off adversaries.
Earlier this year, Palantir delivered its first two AI-powered systems in its $178 million contract with the U.S. Army. In May, the Department of Defense boosted its Maven Smart Systems contract to beef up AI capabilities by $795 million.
Earlier this year, Palantir delivered its first two AI-powered systems in its $178 million contract with the U.S. Army. In May, the Department of Defense boosted its Maven Smart Systems contract to beef up AI capabilities by $795 million.
Recent investors (Score:5, Insightful)
Let's take a look at how many in congress recently invested in the company.
Re: (Score:2)
To the victor go the spoils (Score:5, Insightful)
Well that's some nice payback for Thiel's support of Trump, and also plays into the creation of the surveillance state that the tech bros are pushing for.
Re:To the victor go the spoils (Score:5, Insightful)
Butthurt MAGA marking this troll. Imagine if Biden awarded military contracts to a corp headed by George Soros.
Re: To the victor go the spoils (Score:2)
Re: To the victor go the spoils (Score:2)
Re:To the victor go the spoils (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:To the victor go the spoils (Score:5, Informative)
Well that's some nice payback for Thiel's support of Trump, and also plays into the creation of the surveillance state that the tech bros are pushing for.
Don't forget Oracle. Ellison is getting his payback as well.
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Oracle's business model has long roots in the surveillance of ordinary citizens. Oracle takes its name from a CIA project codename. In 1977, Oracle's founder, Larry Ellison, was hired by the CIA to build a database; the CIA was Oracle's first customer.
From the 66 page Oracle vs Katz-Lacabe complaint. https://www.iccl.ie/wp-content... [www.iccl.ie]
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The GP is referring to el Bunko's new.support for heathcare records that will follow you wherever you go, as long as they are kept in an Oracle database, accessed with Oracle crapware, etc. For which, el Bunko will get paid handsomely.
unlimited funds (Score:5, Interesting)
"provides the government with purchasing flexibility and removes contract-related fees and procurement timelines"
All that inconvenient 'contract' stuff got brushed out of the way, now Palantir gets a direct pipeline to the $10 billion.
Re:unlimited funds (Score:4, Insightful)
They also got a contract to combine all the government databases into one so your entire interaction can now be shared with every department. The whole "government OS" thing.
Basically, it's a social credit system like China has.
Thiel is a ghoul (Score:4, Insightful)
so I guess this fits
Re: (Score:3)
No, he is not a ghoul. Peter Thiel is a vampire, although he tries to deny it [youtu.be].
Also worth watching: Peter Thiel and his dorky little goons [youtube.com]
Palantir's AI-powered systems (Score:2, Insightful)
will hallucinate us into nuclear war. It won't just wipe out databases
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I think the bigger problem is that they probably not hallucinate, but know exactly what they are doing. Know exactly what YOU are doing. AI in the surveillance sector is scary.
There is a lot of data about you online. You've posted as Anonymous Coward, so you're safe? Yeah, it is really hard to correlate you to someone. For me. But now let an AI system sift through terabyte of data to build a classifier that can tell people apart from their writing style. AI is damn good in picking up patterns even humans do
Single AI-focused enterprise framework (Score:2)
Gemini: “No, it is generally not considered wise to put all military IT services on a single, monolithic system. Centralizing all IT services in one place creates a single point of failure, making the entire system vulnerable to disruptions from cyberattacks, natural disasters, or even simple hardware malfunctions”
Grok: Centralizing all military IT services on a single system is a double-edged sword. On one hand, it can
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The main benefit to Maggot-Land is it makes the Nazi Fascist state just that much closer. Thiel is right-wingnut who supports Nazi parties in other countries. He doesn't have to look at himself in the mirror because he has no reflection in one.
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He literally oppose democracy: [youtu.be]
"Most importantly, I no longer believe that freedom and democracy are compatible."
(and by "freedom" he of course means his freedom to live without consequences for any of his actions).
$10 billion (Score:1)
Not really new money (Score:3)
1. It effectively makes Palantir some sort of "co-prime" on 60 existing contracts where they are currently a subcontractor. They can no longer be fired by the primes and this contract is going to run longer than any of these existing contracts so Palantir will ultimately be the sole survivor.
2. It effectively takes money from existing budgets scattered across 75 different smaller orgs and puts it at the Secretary of the Army level -- so Palantir cannot be fired anymore by the people they work directly for.
3. It removes control from the orgs they are working for, Under this contract, orgs that were directly tasking Palantir will now have to ask the Secretary of the Army to ask Palantir to do the work.
4. It locks Palantir into the Army in a big way for an entire decade and makes it even more likely that they will capture more and more work in the Army. With this contract in place, instead of someone having to go through the trouble of the entire contracting process an Army org can just add to this contract and get Palantir to do the work they want -- they do not even have to write a sole-source justification to do this. They can press the easy button and hire Palantir directly via this vehicle.
A lot of DoD work is about to disappear for many contractors that have traditionally obtained work with the Army.
contract terms? (Score:3)
I bet this is an Other Transaction Agreement (OTA), rather than the traditional Federal Acquisition Regulations (FAR) procurement. OTAs come with MUCH LESS rules and MUCH LESS oversight. Sometimes they produce quick results, other times they produce substantial questionable, if not actually fraudulent contract charges (at least according to FAR restrictions.) I saw this on FCS, where Boeing charged stuff under the OTA that would later be prohibited under FAR. It's one reason the Army converted the contract to a FAR.
The other thing I wonder about are the requirements, deliverables, and verification procedures. FAR contracts start with a requirements document, a clearly defined set of deliverables, and the contract includes verification procedures (test, inspection, etc) for the deliverables (which one presumes are sufficient to show the result meets the requirements - that's the job of the solicitation authors.)
Now it could be a 'omnibus task order' contract, where there's a cap on the total dollar amount, but actual work is done on a task-order basis. Each task order would have requirements, deliverable list, and verification procedures for that task order.
But this sure feels to me like "Send us shitloads of cash, and maybe we'll deliver something. And if you don't like what we deliver, tough." (And that's before considering Palantir's track record on the projects where I've observed them, where they delivered to less than the full set of requirements, and told the customer, "Oh that stuff we didn't deliver. That's too hard/something our product doesn't do. Sorry if you actually needed that.")
Re: (Score:3)
Reading the above poster one could say it's even worse.
Final Take
This isn’t just “one big contract.” This is institutional capture via administrative machinery—what some would call “soft monopolization” of public service delivery. Whether or not it’s technically legal under current DoD policies, it undermines the entire premise of competitive, accountable, mission-driven procurement.
This should absolutely raise alarms—especially for:
Congressional oversight com