- New strategic partnership with Palantir to unlock up to
£1.5bn investment into the UK to deliver new jobs, growth and
national security.
- Palantir announces plans to make the UK its European HQ for
defence and create up to 350 new high-skilled jobs, cementing the
UK as a state-of-the-art defence technology hub.
- Palantir and UK military to develop AI-powered capabilities
already tested in Ukraine to speed up decision making, military
planning and targeting.
The UK will be at the leading edge of defence innovation as the
government signs a new partnership with Palantir to unlock
billions in investment and deliver on the Government's Plan for
Change.
It will see Palantir invest up to £1.5bn 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 (18 September) by Defence
Secretary , 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 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 world-leading Tech Prosperity
Deal signed by President Trump of the United States and UK Prime
Minister .
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.
