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00:00Louis, thank you very much for your time. How do you characterise this moment in time when it comes to defence tech software, given all of the global challenges that we face?
00:12I think we're living through two big global changes. One is geopolitical and the other is technology. The interesting thing is they're happening at once.
00:20So you've got the world moving to a much more, well, let's call it the moment of American unipolarity is over.
00:30There are now adversaries, particularly China, that are near peer or even potentially stronger than the US in certain ways.
00:39So that's a fundamental geopolitical shift. But at the same time, you're seeing a revolution in artificial intelligence, technology which will change every aspect of our lives,
00:48not least defence and military. And I think that will play out over a very short period of time.
00:53This could happen in five to ten years. And it's of the scale of the Industrial Revolution, but will play out over a much shorter period of time.
01:01How does the AI component play into Palantir? It's central, clearly, to what you do.
01:06How does generative AI and large language models, how are you building them into your products, particularly when it comes to automated defence software and solutions?
01:14So we provide the software layer in which you deploy the models.
01:19So the LLMs are held, if you like, in harnesses by our software so that they can be used in secure, auditable and transparent ways.
01:28And that means you can get the maximum value from them.
01:31The best way of thinking about an LLM is like a unit of cognition.
01:33So all of the workflows, all of the daily tasks that involve some element of human cognition, those are what you might be able to replace over time with LLMs.
01:43Now, of course, you need to do that in a way that's very secure, that's very transparent, that's very auditable.
01:47But that's what we're embarking upon now.
01:50So our software is being deployed by a number of allies in the West, broadly defined, to do precisely this.
01:58And what you're seeing is an exponential improvement in their productivity and in the efficiency of what they've traditionally done.
02:05So if you were to take, for example, targeting, so that's the process of identifying something that you want to shoot at and then running through that whole process of shooting at it
02:14and then checking that it's had the effect that you intended, that process in that was perfected in the US during the war in Iraq, you would have these target targeting cells.
02:26And typically they would comprise thousands of people who were doing discrete tasks in that complex chain.
02:33They have been able to now reduce that down to what took 20,000 people to 2,000 people.
02:38They can now do a 20.
02:40So it's 100 X improvement in the productivity of a targeting cell.
02:44So that's here and now.
02:46What does that look like then in five years' time, given how rapidly AI is innovating?
02:52And if scaling continues as we expect, what does defense software look like in five years?
02:58How agentic will it be and how do you keep humans in the loop?
03:00So I think the question of how you keep humans in the loop is going to be a policy question.
03:07Technologically, unfortunately, I think we're moving in a direction where much of the process can be automated.
03:14So lots of this could be done by agents.
03:16And so the big question that we're all going to have to confront is where do you insist on having a human in the loop?
03:21And I think in the West, we're very clear about the importance of maintaining that.
03:25My concern is that adversaries may not be.
03:27What specifically does Palantir put in place to ensure that there aren't disastrous errors in the deployment of this software?
03:38What mitigating factors are built in?
03:41Well, you could think of our software as the mitigating factor.
03:43So we are the harness in which you run the model so that you can do that transparently, securely and auditively.
03:51And the audit is the key thing.
03:52It means you can know and you can go back in time to check when a decision was taken, what did the decision maker know at that moment in time?
03:59What was the context in which they made the decision and so forth?
04:01And in the end, that's the safeguard.
04:03There's a human in the loop taking the decision, but the software captures everything that the human knew at the time.
04:08And so, for example, if it's a question of collateral damage, was that something that was available as information to the decision maker at the moment when they took that step?
04:18You've worked very closely, of course, Palantir, in Ukraine for a number of years since that conflict.
04:23What has Palantir learned?
04:25What has your team learned by operating, working with Ukrainians, particularly when it comes to the pace of digital transformation on the battlefield?
04:32Ukraine has been the R&D lab for AI in a military context for the last three years.
04:39It is the absolute bleeding edge of military technology.
04:42There is no substitute for a real battlefield.
04:46You can build things in the laboratory, you can test them, but you don't know whether they really work until you've seen it on the battlefield.
04:54And Ukraine, sadly, is where that is currently happening.
04:58I would pay enormous credit to the Ukrainians here.
05:01They have been phenomenally innovative.
05:05They're ingenious in many ways.
05:07Part of that is circumstance, that they have not had all of the equipment and resources that they would have liked, and so they've been forced to innovate.
05:15But that has led to an extraordinary acceleration in military technology, where you're seeing major leaps every six to eight weeks,
05:25where tactics and procedures have to change because of some fundamental technological discovery or progress.
05:32And I think the only historic analogy that I'm aware of is the development of radar during the Second World War,
05:39where every bombing raid back and forth across the channel led to some fundamental discovery in radar.
05:44You're seeing something similar occur today in artificial intelligence in Ukraine.
05:48You've signed pretty significant contracts with the M.O.D. here in the U.K.
05:52You're investing here in the U.K.
05:54How does that position Palantir to grow and lock in future contracts of that size and scale, not just in the U.K., but on the continent?
06:01The U.K. is, we believe, the country outside of the U.S. and China that has the best quality and quantity of the kind of engineering talent that you need to build software like ours.
06:15So the U.K. can be an epicenter of defense, military technology development.
06:22It has all of those ingredients.
06:25So that's why we're very keen to make a significant investment here.
06:27We want to tap that talent in effect.
06:29We already have a thousand people in London, and that is our second largest office globally,
06:33but we want to grow that significantly over the next five years.
06:37And the U.K. is the premier military power in Europe.
06:41It's a key pillar of NATO.
06:43I think it has the potential to be a key bridge into the rest of the continent,
06:50but also act as that security guarantee for many other countries.
06:54Talking of the continent, Germany is obviously stepping up its spending significantly on defense.
06:59As are other members of NATO, European members of NATO.
07:03What does that mean for Palantir?
07:04Are you starting to see the funds flowing from that, or is that a 2026 story?
07:09Are the Germans engaging?
07:10I think it's yet to come, as you say.
07:12I think this is more in years to come.
07:15But we have a significant presence in Germany.
07:18We have had for a number of years.
07:19We work both with the German government, but also with a number of very large German blue chips, big corporates.
07:26And so we are very keen to help Germany as it begins this journey to remilitarization.
07:32And to be clear, you expect the ramped up defense spending overall in NATO,
07:36and particularly those European members, you do expect to be able to tap into that
07:40and take advantage of that and be a player.
07:43I think we have a key value to offer all the countries in the West broadly defined
07:49as they bring their militaries into the 21st century.
07:54Is the focus on sovereign defense holding things back when it comes to your operations in Europe?
08:00There is the argument that to be truly sovereign,
08:03the contracts have to go to European headquartered defense companies.
08:08And clearly you are not European headquartered, though you have a big presence here.
08:11How much of that is a headwind?
08:13So I don't think it is a headwind, or at least we haven't picked that up yet.
08:17The question of sovereignty is a very complex one.
08:20I think the most important aspect of sovereignty is for nations to be able to control the capabilities they have.
08:28They need to have independence over how they're used, when they're used, and so forth.
08:33There cannot be an ability for a third country to prevent another country
08:38from using the military capabilities they have in the way that they wish to.
08:42And those are resolvable on legal level, technical level, and so forth.
08:47So it's a process that countries are going to have to go through.
08:52It's one that the West, broadly defined, went through in the 20th century
08:56with nuclear technology, with aircraft, with very complex supply chains,
09:01with many, many players from many different countries,
09:03in order to guarantee that sovereignty and that ability to control its use.
09:07I think as we're looking at the developments in artificial intelligence and in software,
09:12we in the West are going to go through a similar process.
09:14And to be clear, if you are a Ministry of Defence, you have a contract with Palantir,
09:21you don't need to worry about a Trump administration or any U.S. administration
09:24deciding that actually we're going to flick the switch and turn this service off.
09:29No, that's exactly right.
09:30The capabilities we provide to our customers give them that full control over the use of the capability.
09:36It's their data, it's their logic, it's their instance of the software.
09:40How does your relationship with NATO change and adapt over the next five years?
09:44Well, we won an important contract with NATO at the beginning of this year
09:47to roll out our software as the operating system at the NATO top level.
09:53So that doesn't involve individual member countries of NATO, it's the NATO organisation itself.
09:58But I think that gives us, obviously, a position from which we can start to support countries within NATO
10:04that want also to develop their own sovereign version of that capability.
10:08When you see the kind of probing that Russian forces have been taking,
10:11whether it's via drones or via fighter jets or bombers, into NATO airspace,
10:18how does that tie into, does that directly affect how Palantir is thinking about operations?
10:23Do you get people picking up the phone and saying,
10:25we need a response now, there's a role for you here?
10:29They're thinking about a drone wall.
10:30Is there a role for Palantir there?
10:32There is, I mean, in the end, this is about being able to control your own airspace,
10:36about being able to maintain your own independence and sovereignty as a country.
10:39And that means you need awareness.
10:42You need to understand what is happening in all domains, in space, in air, on land, on sea.
10:48And our software is used by many countries to do precisely that.
10:50What is your relationship with the primes, the major defence contractors?
10:54Are you a threat to them or a partner?
10:57We do software.
10:58They traditionally do hardware.
11:00So I wouldn't see it as a competitive dynamic.
11:02I would see us as being partners.
11:04We do different bits of a larger puzzle.
11:08And in order for our common defence customers to succeed, they're going to need both.
11:12They're going to need cutting-edge hardware and cutting-edge software.
11:14Does Europe, does the UK, does Europe need to change, do they need to change the procurement rules,
11:19which are typically, it's a lengthy process?
11:23Is that holding us back?
11:24Yes, it is.
11:25And we're seeing the beginnings of moves in that direction.
11:29In the Strategic Defence Review that the UK published over the summer,
11:33they announced, for example, that contracts for artificial intelligence and software and new tech
11:38would be done in under three months.
11:40I think that's a very, very noble ambition.
11:42We have yet to see that happen.
11:45But it's a recognition of the reality that the technology that they're acquiring at the bleeding edge,
11:50the obsolescence of that technology can be measured in weeks and months.
11:54So if you're taking longer than three months to buy it,
11:56the thing you're buying might be out of date by the time you put it into production.
11:59So it's incredibly important to accelerate those procurement timescales.
12:04From the outset, Palanty's been very clear.
12:05You're not going to work with Russia.
12:06You're not going to work with China.
12:07Adversaries of the West.
12:09How do you think about a situation?
12:11For example, if you were to get an AFD in power in Germany, which Germany's own security services
12:17define as extremist, would that be a government that Palanty would work with?
12:23That's a very difficult hypothetical question to answer.
12:26We have a policy of supporting democratically elected governments to pursue policies that they have
12:32a democratic mandate to deliver.
12:35So we don't play party politics.
12:37We have provided our services and our software in the U.S., for example,
12:41to administrations of every different color and stripe over the last 20 years.
12:44That's what you're going about.
13:02Thank you for being on theγͺγ tongue.
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