Strategic partnership to boost UK military AI and innovation

Above: Defence Secretary John Healey meeting Palantir CEO Alex Karp.
Courtesy MoD

It will see Palantir invest up to £1.5 billion to help make the UK a defence innovation leader and create up to 350 new jobs, making defence an engine for growth.

The new partnership, signed today by Defence Secretary John Healey, will help the UK military develop the latest digital tools and harness AI technology to accelerate decision making, improve targeting and keep the British people safe from evolving threats. Palantir has also announced plans for London to become the base for Palantir’s European defence business, establishing Britain as a hub for defence technology innovation across Europe.

The arrangement will also support the growth of British Defence Tech companies across the supply chain, with Palantir helping to mentor and develop UK companies. This will include helping British defence start-ups and SMEs to expand into US markets, including an offering on a pro bono basis.

Defence Secretary John Healey MP said: "This partnership is a major vote of confidence in UK leadership in defence, data and AI technology and as an ideal location for companies to invest and expand.  

"By harnessing the power of AI, we will boost the effectiveness of our Armed Forces, ensuring they have the tools they need to keep the British people safe. 

"The work will unlock billions of pounds of investment into UK innovation, creating hundreds of skilled UK jobs and making defence 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.

Some of these new capabilities will support development of what is known as the ‘kill chain’, whereby military planners fuse a wide range of information and data sources from open source and military platforms to provide military commanders with faster options for attacking an enemy target. This would form an element of the Digital Targeting Web, announced in the Strategic Defence Review, which will have a large and diverse supplier ecosystem. 

Cutting-edge data and AI tech, which is already being proven on the battlefield in Ukraine, speeds up this planning by fusing together sensitive information to rapidly produce a plan to target and attack the enemy.  

The partnership will identify opportunities with UK Defence which could be worth up to £750 million over the next five years, showing that the UK is in a strong position to be a digital, data and AI world leader.

Today’s announcement builds on the Tech Prosperity Deal signed by President Trump of the United States and UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer.

Palantir CEO Alex Karp said: "This partnership reflects our deep commitment to the UK. It will see up to £750m invested in the most advanced AI-enabled defence technology, honed on the battlefield in Ukraine and used extensively by the US and NATO. 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."

Building on its existing UK workforce of around 1,000, Palantir has committed to hiring up to 200 new UK staff and up to 150 jobs in the broader UK defence technology sector to deliver Ministry of Defence programmes.

This investment in UK talent will strengthen Britain’s expertise in cutting-edge defence technologies and support many more well-paid, skilled employment opportunities across the UK that contribute to economic growth – key pillars of the Defence Industrial Strategy, published last week. 

Palantir will provide technical support for software deployment within UK Defence and develop capabilities that will allow UK-developed software to deploy into US and international markets. As part of this, Palantir will mentor UK small and medium enterprises and other AI businesses to develop innovative products and solutions. 

The company will also continue to support Defence in the implementation of the Defence Digital and Data Strategy, helping transform MoD into a truly data-centric organisation where every soldier, analyst and commander can seamlessly access and exploit data. It will ensure data remains sovereign, freely available across MoD to be exploited wherever it is needed.