The Deep View: NATO acquires Palantir’s AI-for-war platform

Posted on April 15, 2025 by michelleclarke2015
NATO acquires Palantir’s AI-for-war platform
Source: Unsplash
NATO, the Europe-North American military alliance, said Monday that it has acquired Palantir’s Maven Smart System (MSS) for warfighting. 
The details: The platform purportedly brings together a wide range of data sources and a number of AI-related applications, including large language models (LLMs), generative AI and machine learning. It will be used, according to a statement, to enhance “intelligence fusion and targeting, battlespace awareness and planning, and accelerated decision-making.”
NATO said in a statement that the acquisition was “one of the most expeditious” in NATO’s history, spanning just six months from early outlines to final acquisition. It will enter into use within the next 30 days, and will be continuously leveraged as a means of adopting additional, novel technologies, “including new, emerging AI models, and modeling and simulation.” 
The terms of NATO’s contract with Palantir are unclear. 
NATO’s statement makes no mention of issues of human oversight, governance procedures, accountability protocols, or, more generally, methods of guaranteeing transparency, explainability and reliability.  
A 2022 West Point analysis of AI technologies, on the other hand, highlighted the many security vulnerabilities associated with the tech, advocating for a thoughtful, careful approach to integration, an approach that seems absent from this latest round of hype. 
The landscape: In May of last year, the U.S. Department of Defense awarded Palantir a $480 million contract for a prototype Maven Smart System. In September of last year, the DevCom Army Research Lab awarded Palantir an additional $100 million to expand the Maven system across all the branches of the U.S. military. 
Palantir began work on Maven in 2017. It was first deployed in late 2023, shortly following the onset of the Israel-Hamas war. 
Dr. Elke Schwarz, a professor of political theory at the Queen Mary University of London, told me in March that it is unclear “why military leaders, who rely on the highest degree of accuracy for their decision making, would come to rely on a technology which is, at this stage of the state of AI, likely to be quite flawed and unreliable.”
Shares of Palantir surged on the news, spiking as much as 5%. 

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About michelleclarke2015

Life event that changes all: Horse riding accident in Zimbabwe in 1993, a fractured skull et al including bipolar anxiety, chronic fatigue …. co-morbidities (Nietzche 'He who has the reason why can deal with any how' details my health history from 1993 to date). 17th 2017 August operation for breast cancer (no indications just an appointment came from BreastCheck through the Post). Trinity College Dublin Business Economics and Social Studies (but no degree) 1997-2003; UCD 1997/1998 night classes) essays, projects, writings. Trinity Horizon Programme 1997/98 (Centre for Women Studies Trinity College Dublin/St. Patrick's Foundation (Professor McKeon) EU Horizon funded: research study of 15 women (I was one of this group and it became the cornerstone of my journey to now 2017) over 9 mth period diagnosed with depression and their reintegration into society, with special emphasis on work, arts, further education; Notes from time at Trinity Horizon Project 1997/98; Articles written for Irishhealth.com 2003/2004; St Patricks Foundation monthly lecture notes for a specific period in time; Selection of Poetry including poems written by people I know; Quotations 1998-2017; other writings mainly with theme of social justice under the heading Citizen Journalism Ireland. Letters written to friends about life in Zimbabwe; Family history including Michael Comyn KC, my grandfather, my grandmother's family, the O'Donnellan ffrench Blake-Forsters; Moral wrong: An acrimonious divorce but the real injustice was the Catholic Church granting an annulment – you can read it and make your own judgment, I have mine. Topics I have written about include annual Brain Awareness week, Mashonaland Irish Associataion in Zimbabwe, Suicide (a life sentence to those left behind); Nostalgia: Tara Hill, Co. Meath.
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