🔒 US Army awards Palantir $480M Maven contract

In a significant move, the US Army has entrusted Palantir Technologies Inc. with a monumental $480 million contract for the Maven Smart System project, spanning until 2029. Leveraging Palantir’s advanced artificial intelligence suite, Maven employs cutting-edge technology like computer vision to bolster military efficiency in resource assessment and target identification. This milestone contract marks a pivotal transition from prototype to production, scaling Maven’s user base from hundreds to thousands, underlining Palantir’s expanding role in defence innovation.

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By Lizette Chapman

The US Army awarded a $480 million contract to Palantir Technologies Inc. for work on a project called the Maven Smart System. ___STEADY_PAYWALL___

The Maven deal was disclosed Wednesday as part of the Defense Department’s daily contract announcements and will continue through 2029.

The contract further extends Palantir’s relationship with the military, and makes use of the company’s growing suite of artificial intelligence offerings. The Maven project uses AI and computer vision to help militaries assess their own battlefield resources and more quickly and accurately identify enemy targets.

Shannon Clark, Palantir senior vice president of federal research and development, said in a briefing that the contract moves Maven from prototype to production, expanding the number of users “from hundreds to thousands” starting June 1. Citing national security restrictions, she declined to detail what new capabilities the next phase of Maven could include.

The Maven technology, which Palantir has been building for the Army since Google abandoned the contract in 2018, has matured in recent years to include data from radar systems and heat-detecting infrared sensors. It also analyzes nonvisual data like geolocations tags collected from smartphones and social media feeds, Bloomberg has reported.

There are no technical limitations on which data sources can integrate into Palantir’s system and “we defer to the government” to decide what to include, Palantir’s Defense Department enterprise leader, Andrew Locke, said.

Clark said Maven users include US Central Command, the US European Command, the US Northern Command, the US Transportation Command and parts of the Joints Chief of Staff.

Since billionaire tech investor and sometime political donor Peter Thiel co-founded Palantir, the Denver-based software company has grown from serving the US intelligence community to working with dozens of government agencies in the US and in allied countries. As more companies have demanded AI tools, Palantir has expanded its commercial business, though government revenue still makes up the majority of sales.

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