Shyam Sankar

Chief Technology Officer & Executive Vice President, Palantir

Search every verified Shyam Sankar interview, podcast appearance, and on-the-record quote — each transcript cross-checked by AI and human review to confirm speaker identity. Shyam Sankar, chief technology officer and executive vice president at Palantir Technologies, said in July 2026 that the Pentagon has "dismantled almost every hurdle" to defense tech adoption and that the 2027 budget will be "the first time they put a real stake in the ground" with capital committed to accelerating autonomous systems and AI. Speaking at the Pennsylvania Defense & Innovation Summit, Sankar warned that turning away from AI innovation would be "as consequential a mistake as turning our back on the atom in the 70s." He also commented on European allies ending relationships with Palantir, stating that "serious people" have examined the software and found no back doors, but that he does not "begrudge" countries wanting to spend money on their own companies. In other appearances, Sankar discussed his "heretics and heroes" framework for innovation and Palantir's "artist colony" culture, and argued that AI will reindustrialize America and create millions of jobs. He stated that "the American people are being lied to" about AI, rejecting both "doomerism" about mass unemployment and "fantasism" about untold abundance. Sankar also said that "national security is not an end unto itself" but a means to "American prosperity," and criticized Chinese open-source models as "stolen American IP from Frontier Labs." He expressed support for the government taking equity stakes in some critical national security companies, calling it "an option on the table."