Palantir Technologies Inc. is an American publicly traded company specializing in software platforms for data mining. Headquartered in Denver, Colorado, it was founded in 2003 by Peter Thiel, Stephen Cohen, Joe Lonsdale, and Alex Karp.
The company has four main operating systems: Palantir Gotham, Palantir Foundry, Palantir Apollo, and Palantir AIP. Palantir Gotham is an intelligence tool used by police in many countries as a predictive policing system and by militaries and counter-terrorism analysts, including the United States Intelligence Community (USIC) and United States Department of Defense. Its software as a service (SaaS) is one of five offerings authorized for Mission Critical National Security Systems (IL5) by the U.S. Department of Defense. Palantir Foundry has been used for data integration and analysis by corporate clients such as Morgan Stanley, Merck KGaA, Airbus, Wejo, Lilium, PG&E and Fiat Chrysler Automobiles. Palantir Apollo is a platform to facilitate continuous integration/continuous delivery (CI/CD) across all environments.
Palantir's original clients were federal agencies of the USIC. It has since expanded its customer base to serve both international, state, and local governments, and also private companies.
The company has been criticized for its role in expanding government surveillance using artificial intelligence and facial recognition software. Former employees and critics say the company's contracts under the second Trump Administration, which enable mass deportation and the aggregation of sensitive data on Americans across administrative agencies, are problematic.