WASHINGTON — The Pentagon is dramatically increasing spending on artificial intelligence for military operations, raising the contract ceiling for Palantir Technologies’ Maven Smart System to nearly $1.3 billion through 2029.
The Defense Department announced May 21 it is upping the spending limit for software licenses under Maven by $795 million, compared to a ceiling of $480 million just a year ago. The new funding is specifically for U.S. combatant commands, which oversee military operations across geographic regions.
Project Maven, launched by the Pentagon in 2017, was designed to accelerate the adoption of AI and machine learning across the U.S. military. The program uses artificial intelligence to analyze massive volumes of imagery and data from sources like satellites, drones and other sensors, enabling rapid detection, identification and tracking of objects of interest.
In 2022, operational control of the geospatial intelligence aspects of Maven was transferred to the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency (NGA), which coordinates intelligence gathering from satellite imagery and other location-based sources.
Palantir has separate contracts with NGA and for Maven Smart System software licenses for the U.S. Army, Navy, Air Force and Space Force.
“Adoption by the U.S. combatant commands for the first year has been far greater than expectations,” according to a report from William Blair investment firm analysts. The much higher contract ceiling reflects the “mass adoption of the Maven Smart System for geospatial awareness and targeting.”
NGA Director Vice Adm. Frank Whitworth said the agency recently awarded Palantir a $28 million contract to expand access to Maven Smart System for the agency’s analysts.
There are now more than 20,000 active users of Maven across more than 35 military service and combatant command software tools. The user base has more than quadrupled since March of last year and more than doubled since January alone.
“Maven Smart System is designed to speed up detection, identification and characterization of features and objects in drone and satellite imagery,” Whitworth said May 21 at the GEOINT Symposium in St. Louis.
From hours to minutes
The AI system is transforming how quickly military units can identify and engage targets. Whitworth said Maven helps decrease targeting workflow timelines by a substantial amount, with one unit reporting that its intelligence-operations timelines during a recent exercise dropped from hours to minutes from sensing to target engagement.
“Army leaders, specifically, are trying to leverage Maven to meet a new vision for units to make a thousand high-quality decisions — choosing and dismissing targets on the battlefield—in one hour,” Whitworth said.
He described Maven as “our marquee targeting program of record,” adding: “We embrace the speed and scale AI brings to our tradecraft.”
Under the Maven program there is close collaboration between government agencies and private contractors, Whitworth said. He described targeting operations using AI and geospatial intelligence as a “team sport.”
“Everyone dives in on this … our own experts, Palantir’s experts, even experts from the combatant commands,” he said. About a dozen subcontractors also support the Maven Smart System.
Palantir, founded in 2003 in Palo Alto, California, specializes in big data analytics and has become a major Pentagon contractor. The company’s Maven Smart System uses AI algorithms and machine learning to scan, identify, and prioritize enemy systems and objects by fusing data from various intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance sources.
