The challenges of our century are solvable with innovative software AI
Arecent Washington Post op-ed found columnist David Ignatius on the frontlines in Ukraine. Ignatius was trying to uncover the difference makers in the war against Russia; specifically, how a nation with the resources and size of Ukraine has so outperformed expectations. Recall, this was a conflict expected to be over in days.
Now, it’s approaching the one-year mark. By witnessing firsthand innovative technologies in action, Ignatius concluded Ukraine is winning because they’re fighting a war of the future, while Russia is set squarely in the past.
This discovery matches trends across the globe. Solutions to the greatest problems of the 21st Century are already being devised. For centuries, known unknowns – the risks we’re aware of but are unable to properly address – have plagued human decision makers, from the general on the battlefield to the firefighter searching out embers amongst thousands of trees. Where is the enemy? Or the firebreak? Or the child being trafficked? We know there’s an answer to these questions, but we’ve never had adequate data inference capabilities to help.
Until now.
Palantir is the data analysis software company helping the world’s top decisions makers answer previously unanswerable questions, creating an amazing user experience for working with data in the process. Machine learning is no longer the frontier of software integration. Instead, Palantir is innovating at the very edges of what is possible in AI. One of their offerings – Meta Constellation – expands on their game-changing platform to integrate
Edge AI – algorithmic AI operating outside the cloud in the real world – and massive data sets, providing superior insights in real time.
Another offering from Palantir is Skykit, which is designed to be a fully disconnected intelligence center giving soldiers an advantage over adversaries, bringing intelligence and operations to the edge.
Skykit is powered by Palantir software including Meta-Constellation and AIP, enabling users to task and analyze data from anywhere.
Palantir’s Meta Constellation software is essentially AI operating in space.
By utilizing the nearendless data collected by the myriad commercial satellites orbiting Earth, Meta Constellation collects and makes sense of datasets through specific queryable insights available to decision makers on the ground. In Ukraine, credit is due to the US government who helped scale the operation. Washington’s unwavering support of the embattled country has allowed the day-to-day operatives on the ground to utilize Meta Constellation effectively.
On the battlefields of Ukraine, this partnership between the US and Palantir often means the difference between life and death. Ukrainian military officers use laptops to pour over data collected from commercial satellites identifying enemy positions as well as to examine infrared data that can expose munition hot zones.
These targeting maps constructed through programs like Meta Constellation allow not only for precision strikes on Russian targets, but also, the platform collects data about the strike itself to more efficiently and better target strikes in the future. All computations and analysis happen in real-time, providing the more accurate information available.
“This is the “wizard war” in the Ukraine conflict,” writes Ignatius, “a secret digital campaign that has never been reported before in detail — and it’s a big reason David is beating Goliath here. The Ukrainians are fusing their courageous fighting spirit with the most advanced intelligence and battle-management software ever seen in combat.”
The applications of Palantir’s software go beyond Ukraine, tipping the balance of power internationally toward a new era of haves and have-nots in the war of information. According to Alex Karp, chief executive of Palantir, it’s a defining moment for the West.
“The power of advanced algorithmic warfare systems is now so great that it equates to having tactical nuclear weapons against an adversary with only conventional ones,” explains Mr. Karp. “The general public tends to underestimate this. Our adversaries no longer do.”
As we enter a new geopolitical landscape where thin margins in data analytics between superpowers could mean the difference between victory and annihilation, using technology is the differentiator. It’s not something for which
The US and its allies are conventionally known. But, as Mr. Karp notes, this is a changing perception.
“We’re no longer viewed only as a place that produces the most important articles of liberty,”: he explains. “Now, we’re a culture who produces the best software.”
Perhaps most importantly, these technological advances in data analytics could translate to dynamic drivers of peace. The success in Ukraine has been a proving ground for products of war that should act as deterrents for our adversaries in the future. In the same way the powerful weapons of the past kept cold wars from turning hot, superior data analytic systems like Palantir’s Meta Constellation software should function similarly.
The result could be a safer, more collaborative world where advanced data analytics help solve the world’s most pressing problems. It’s future we all hope to be part of.
“We’re no longer viewed only as a place that produces the most important articles of liberty, now, we’re a culture who produces the best software.”
- Alex Karp, chief executive of Palantir