Palantir stocks have plunged, but Poland dives in and signs deal

Palantir’s stock fell sharply in early October, following reports that the tech firm’s systems purchased by the US Army were seriously flawed. Poland has still signed a deal with the company to upgrade its military.

This week, Poland signed two separate agreements with AI-heavy Palantir and Anduril, another US defense technology company known for developing AI-powered autonomous systems.

The country, which borders Russia’s Kaliningrad region and Ukraine, at war with invading Russia, is investing heavily into its military and planning to spend around $55 billion, or almost 5% of its gross domestic product, on defense next year.

Signing deals with Palantir and Anduril – or rather letters of intent on data, AI, and cybersecurity – is one of the ways to upgrade the Polish army, of course. Warsaw is reportedly interested in several systems Palantir offers for battlefield management and logistics.

“Today's letter of intent with Palantir, an undisputed leader in data management and its use in battlefield logistics and designing the future with AI, is a milestone,” said Poland’s Defense Minister Wladyslaw Kosiniak-Kamysz.

“This company’s solutions are being used to perfection by, among others, the Ukrainian army.”

Poland’s state-owned armaments company PGZ SA will also cooperate with Anduril to make Barracuda-500M cruise missiles. These missiles can work autonomously and boast a strike range of 580 miles.

But a lot is still unclear. No side has disclosed how much those deals were worth, for example, or when the production of Barracuda missiles will begin.

Palantir has tremendous influence inside President Donald Trump’s administration.

It also seems Poland isn’t taking seriously recent reports – obviously, disputed by Palantir – that a battlefield command and control system the company was developing for the US Army was deeply flawed.

A month ago, Reuters cited a US Army memo expressing concerns over Anduril’s NGC2 (Next Generation Command and Control) prototype system, created with subcontractors Palantir and Microsoft.

Palantir’s stock immediately fell 7.5%, although, of course, its shares had remarkably gained more than 2,000% in the last three years. The blow has also been softened by the US Army’s statement that it has mitigated the deficiencies.

However, these sound quite bad. September’s memo said that the NGC2 platform, “in its current state, exhibits critical deficiencies in fundamental security controls, processes, and governance.”

“These issues collectively create a significant risk to data, mission operations, and personnel by rendering the system vulnerable to insider threats, external attacks, and data spillage,” said the document, signed by the Army’s Chief Information Office Chief Technology Officer Gabriele Chiulli.

He went on: “There seems to be a rush to get capabilities into the system without actual oversight or process to do it, putting greater risk as this system further increases this risk.”

For the Poles, though, the decision was always going to be grounded in politics. That’s because Palantir has tremendous influence inside President Donald Trump’s administration.

Vice President J.D. Vance was employed, mentored, and financed by Peter Thiel, who founded Palantir in 2003 and is now battling big legacy firms like Lockheed Martin for big fat deals in the US and around the world.

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