Looks like Palantir ($PLTR) is making another leap across the pond. On Monday, NATO revealed that it’s acquired the data giant’s AI-powered Maven Smart System, marking a giant leap forward for the alliance’s AI-powered warfare capabilities.
NATO’s Allied Command Operations (ACO) will begin using the system within 30 days and will be known as the Palantir Maven Smart System NATO, or MSS NATO for short.
$PLTR jumped 4.6% on Monday at the news. The value of the contract was not disclosed.
Autonomous warfare: Project Maven was founded in 2017 to build AI-powered war-fighting capabilities for the DoD.
- The project was transferred to the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency in 2023, where it became the “Maven” program of record.
- Palantir was contracted to expand Maven across the military services by the Army Research Laboratory for a cool $1B in 2024
- The Maven system uses AI to improve everything from battle space awareness, to supply chain awareness, global integration, force management, contested logistics, joint fires, and targeting workflows, according to Palantir.
- It also aims to break down data and information siloes within the US military using one handy-dandy platform—now, it seems, it will try to do the same within NATO’s byzantine military bureaucracy.
In the field: Palantir’s Maven system has already been tested on the battlefield in Ukraine, but results were mixed.
- Early versions of the software were also used in the Kabul evacuation and the response to Covid-19.
Fragile ties: NATO tapped US-based Palantir even as tensions between the US and its NATO allies are at an all-time high. In case you missed it: Trump has lambasted NATO members for not spending enough on defense and has slapped a blanket 10% tariff on all imported goods (plus way more for things like steel and aluminum).
- Rolling out Maven will allow NATO allies to better communicate with their counterparts across the Atlantic.
- US forces from the Joint Staff in the Pentagon to theater-level Combatant Commands (including EUCOM) all already use the platform.
- NATO says that this will speed the adoption of other cutting-edge tech being used across the alliance, demonstrating “a strong and abiding partnership between the North American and European technology base.”