'Lethal' and 'magical' Palantir tech is in demand by Pentagon, China, Middle East, CEO says

Palantir is shaping the "under-the-hood" practices of the US Defense Department as demand for its software grows across warfighting, shipbuilding, and weapons procurement, CEO Alex Karp said during the company's fourth-quarter earnings call on Monday.

“One of the unusual things that unfortunately we can’t talk about is also just how much we can shape what’s going on under the hood, including how do you orchestrate something in a defense or civilian context?” Karp told investors. “It’s not that we’re the deciders, but it is the first time that we can help shape the footprint against which we execute.”

In December, the company announced it signed an up to $448 million deal with the US Navy to deploy ShipOS, which has demonstrated small-scale successes in streamlining processes used within the Maritime Industrial Base, the network of private companies that build American warships.

In some of those ...