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U.S. national security missions will soon get a boost from cloud-computing and artificial intelligence tools from Microsoft and Palantir.
The tech giant and software platform company are furthering their partnership to provide secure cloud, AI, and analytics capabilities to U.S. defense and intelligence agencies, the companies said Thursday. The agencies will have access to Microsoft’s Azure cloud compute and large language models, or LLMs, including OpenAI’s GPT-4, through its Azure OpenAI Service that will be integrated with Palantir’s AI Platforms (AIP). Palantir’s products will be deployed in Microsoft’s Azure cloud for government, including clouds for top secret use.
Through the partnership, U.S. defense and intelligence agencies will be able to use AI for workloads including logistics, contracting, and action planning. In May, Microsoft deployed a GPT-4-based model onto a cloud with an “air-gapped” environment, meaning it is isolated from the internet and operates on a government-only network. Most AI models need access to the cloud to operate, but it marked the first time a major LLM worked offline, a senior Microsoft executive told Bloomberg.
“Palantir AIP has pioneered the approach to operationalizing AI value — beyond chat — across the enterprise,” Shyam Sankar, chief technology officer at Palantir, said in a statement. “It’s our mission to deliver this software advantage and we’re thrilled to be the first industry partner to deploy Microsoft Azure OpenAI Service in classified environments.”
Microsoft and Palantir will also provide defense and intelligence agencies with “bootcamp experiences” to try the cloud-computing and AI tools.
“This expanded partnership between Microsoft and Palantir will help accelerate the safe, secure and responsible deployment of advanced AI capabilities for the U.S. government,” Deb Cupp, president of Microsoft Americas, said in a statement.