Unlock the Editor’s Digest for free
Roula Khalaf, Editor of the FT, selects her favourite stories in this weekly newsletter.
Palantir raised its full-year outlook on the back of strong US demand on Monday, as chief executive Alex Karp claimed companies were adopting its software to avoid ceding data to leading AI developers.
The Florida-based tech company said it expected full-year revenue of at least $8.15bn with US commercial revenues of $3.4bn. Both figures exceeded analysts’ expectations.
Palantir also posted better than expected earnings for the second quarter, with US sales climbing 23 per cent to $1.57bn. Net income for the period was $1.06bn.
Karp told investors Palantir was benefiting from a push towards AI sovereignty — an effort by nation states and companies to keep control of their data to avoid interference from other actors, including foreign governments.
He said the push was coming as AI’s benefits risked being concentrated in the handful of labs that were training models using customer data.
“The revolution for independence and AI sovereignty is now well under way,” Karp said in a letter to shareholders. “The demand from our partners is clear . . . It is for control over data.”
Monday’s improved outlook helped lift Palantir’s shares more than 12 per cent in after-hours trading. Investors had been pulling back from the group amid fears it will be disrupted by AI labs such as OpenAI and Anthropic. Its shares had fallen 25 per cent in the year to date ahead of the earnings.
During the company’s earnings call, Karp accused some AI labs of exaggerating the technology’s disruptive potential. He said customers were also ceding data to companies, which are using it to build products that could eventually compete with them.
Karp also criticised what he described as attempts by a “tiny group of people” to “colonise” customers and dictate how AI should be used on moral grounds, in remarks that appeared to be aimed at Anthropic.
Anthropic chief executive Dario Amodei has become one of the industry’s leading voices warning that increasingly capable AI models could displace white-collar workers. The company’s tools have triggered market ructions this year amid fears that they will replace workers from software engineers to lawyers.
Amodei has also sought to moderate the technology’s use in defence applications, leading to a protracted legal dispute with the Pentagon.
Palantir, which was founded in the years following the September 11 terror attacks, has positioned itself as a bastion of the west capable of defending the US and its allies from similar threats.
Yet the business has experienced pushback in international markets as Karp increasingly intertwines Palantir with the Trump administration and its policies, including a crackdown on illegal immigration. Karp has commented on the business being “anti-woke” and its tools being used to kill US enemies.
Foreign governments are increasingly seeking to disentangle themselves from Palantir and other US tech groups in an effort to move their systems outside the sphere of Washington’s influence.
France’s domestic intelligence agency signed a deal with ChapsVision in June alongside plans to give government workers access to an AI assistant powered by France’s Mistral. Palantir’s UK contracts have been subject to significant scrutiny, while Germany’s armed forces have excluded the group from contracts.
Officials in Denmark and the Netherlands have similarly expressed a desire to uncouple from the US-based software group.
Palantir’s business has grown more concentrated in the US, with it ever more reliant on deals in its home market. Roughly 19 per cent of its total revenue in the quarter came from international customers, down from 26 per cent in 2025.
The company has signed a number of commercial deals, including reaching an agreement with law firm Kirkland & Ellis in June to deliver an AI system that can draft letters, track agreements and monitor compliance.
But these deals are dwarfed by its $10bn agreement with the Pentagon last year to provide tools for the army over the coming decade.
Credit: Source link
