TechFlow News, March 21: According to an exclusive Reuters report, on March 9, U.S. Deputy Secretary of Defense Steve Feinberg sent a letter to senior Pentagon leaders and U.S. military commanders announcing that Palantir’s Maven artificial intelligence system has been officially designated a “program of record.” This decision is expected to take effect before the end of the current fiscal year (September).
Maven is a command-and-control software platform capable of analyzing battlefield data and automatically identifying potential threats and targets. It is now the U.S. military’s primary AI operating system and has been deployed over the past three weeks to conduct thousands of precision strikes against Iran. In his letter, Feinberg stated that deeply integrating AI across joint forces and establishing an “AI-driven decision-making framework” is an urgent priority. The memo also directs that Maven’s oversight authority be transferred from the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency (NGA) to the Pentagon’s Chief Digital and Artificial Intelligence Office (CDAO) within 30 days; future contracts with Palantir will be managed by the U.S. Army.
This formal designation represents a major win for Palantir. The company’s stock price has doubled over the past year, pushing its market capitalization close to $360 billion. Palantir previously secured a contract with the U.S. Army valued at up to $10 billion. Notably, the Maven system incorporates Claude AI tools developed by Anthropic—yet the Pentagon recently added Anthropic to its list of supply-chain risks, potentially complicating Maven’s deeper integration.
