The UK has struck a defense deal with US spy-tech biz Palantir, which the government says will unlock £1.5 billion ($2 billion) of investment in Britain.
The arrangement emerged during the fanfare of US president Donald Trump’s state visit to the UK, and accompanies a string of announcements by American tech A-listers, with promises the government claimed would be worth £31 billion ($42 billion) for AI and tech infrastructure.
Palantir plans to make the UK its European HQ for defense. The move will create up to 350 new jobs, an official announcement stated.
The data analytics company, founded with cash from the CIA-backed investment fund In-Q-Tel, has attracted controversy by providing digital profiling tools for the CIA and US immigration agency ICE.
None of that was about to stop the UK from diving into bed with Palantir, though. Official channels said it will now partner with the UK military to develop AI-powered capabilities already tested in Ukraine to speed up decision making, military planning, and targeting.
Signed by defense secretary John Healey, the new agreement aims to help the UK military develop software and AI models for decision making and enemy targeting.
The government also hopes the arrangement will support the growth of British defense tech companies supplying the military and weapons manufacturers. It might help UK defense startups expand into the US market, officials suggested.
Healey said in a prepared statement: “The work will unlock billions of pounds of investment into UK innovation, creating hundreds of skilled UK jobs and making defense the leading edge of innovation in NATO.
“Palantir and the UK military will work together to transform lethality on the battlefield, supporting the development of data and AI-powered capabilities across data analysis, intelligence, decision support and targeting systems. This will see the government delivering on a key theme of the Strategic Defence Review and Defence Industrial Strategy: to make the UK the leading edge of innovation in NATO.”
The contract with Palantir is set to fall under the Digital Targeting Web, which is part of the Strategic Defence Review published in June. The idea is that military planners combine data sources from open source and military systems to provide commanders with options for selecting and engaging enemy targets.
Palantir CEO Alex Karp said the company would spend up to £750 million ($1 billion) in the UK. “It will reinforce the UK’s position as a major military force protecting the West from our adversaries. And it will underline the UK’s status as our largest presence outside of the US.”
His prepared statement was in contrast to his more off-the-cuff remarks to investors and conferences. They include the claim that Palantir wanted to build a company that could “power the West to its obvious innate superiority,” and that people were not goose-stepping on the streets of Europe because of his products.
The Palantir partnership follows arrangements with other top US tech firms including Microsoft, Nvidia, Google, OpenAI, and CoreWeave, which total £31 billion of investment in the UK, the government claimed.
Commitments include $30 billion from Microsoft to invest in AI infrastructure and ongoing operations across the UK, Google’s two-year $6.83 billion UK investment, and CoreWeave’s $2 billion datacenter spend. Salesforce also announced an additional $2 billion UK investment this week. ®
