Chief Technology Officer & Executive Vice President, Palantir Technologies
Palantir CTO Shyam Sankar Talks Defense Tech Adoption | Bloomberg Talks
Palantir CTO Shyam Sankar says the Pentagon has accelerated defense tech adoption, speaking with Bloomberg News' Tyler Kendall on Bloomberg Open Interest at the 2026 Pennsylvania Defense & Innovation Summit. He also warned against turning away from AI innovation, saying doing so would be "as consequential a mistake as turning our back on the atom in the 70s."
See omnystudio.com/listener (https://omnystudio.com/listener) for privacy information.
Bloomberg Talks curates top interviews from around Bloomberg News. Hear conversations with the biggest names in finance, politics and entertainment....
About Shyam Sankar
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."
Transcript (12 segments)
H
Host0:02
Bloomberg Audio Studios, podcasts, radio, news. Let's head to the US Army War College where defense and technology leaders are gathering this week to discuss the future of America's defense industrial base. Bloomberg, Washington correspondent Tyler Kendall is there with Palantir's chief technology officer. Tyler,
T
Tyler Kendall0:26
Hey Danny, thanks so much. As you mentioned, I'm pleased to say I'm joined now by the chief technology officer of Palantir, Shyam Sankar. Shyam, it's so nice to see you here on a day where we are talking about bolstering the US defense industrial base made perhaps even more urgent by the fact that we are seeing the conflict in Iran. The Pentagon keeps asking defense tech to move faster. Can you give us a status update on what the relationship is right now between innovative companies and the Pentagon and what hurdles still remain?
S
Shyam Sankar0:56
Well, I don't want to sound too Pollyannish, but I really think this team at the Pentagon has dismantled almost every hurdle that exists and has sent a clear signal that they want to hear about the remaining hurdles that people do confront. They've sent a clear message that this team should meet the urgency of the moment here. And while we can look at the conflict in Iran and look at the rate at which we're expending munitions, really this is a challenge that's grown over the last 30 or 40 years of how we've managed and thought about our defense industrial base.
T
Tyler Kendall1:27
I'm not sure if everyone would agree with the fact that the Pentagon has dismantled the hurdles. What about when it comes to defense spending, for example? I'm curious how you're tracking that. The Trump administration has requested $1.5 trillion dollars seeming to indicate that there is a big need from the administration's view to help bolster our own capabilities including when it comes to replenishing our stockpiles.
S
Shyam Sankar1:50
Well, I think it's going to be very clear that we need both more of our existing exquisite weapons and we need capital to invest in a whole new class of weapons to meet the asymmetry of the moment here. And the side that moves faster is going to win. And our exquisite weapons are amazing, but most of them we really built in the '80s and they've been designed in a way that meets the manufacturing of the '80s. And we're starting to see enormous success with a whole new generation of weapon systems. We look at the ceronics kinetic strikes in Iran just a couple days ago. We look at the success that these new platforms are happening in conflicts in Ukraine. We need to be moving capital there. If you look at the '27 budget, there's a huge amount of resource that's made available to these autonomous systems and to AI, which really, I'd say the Pentagon has actually been one of the fastest places to adopt AI in the American economy given the stakes. They're existential. It's a binary win-lose. Nonetheless, they've done all of that by essentially cobbling together budgets from various line items. '27 will be the first time they put a real stake in the ground, real capital that's committed to accelerate the pace setting projects that will drive us to an entire revolution in how we fight. So part of this is about keeping the US competitive and we saw the other week the French government actually decide to end its relationship with Palantir in part because of a need to bolster their own domestic capabilities and we're seeing this play out among some other European allies.
T
Tyler Kendall3:14
Talk about this concern about being too reliant on US tech. Are you concerned at all about Palantir losing a foothold in Europe or that this could expand to other international markets that you're part of?
S
Shyam Sankar3:26
The product really stands for itself. I think serious people, you know, the Germans have looked at it. They've examined the software. They know there's no back doors in it. There's a huge part of this that really comes down to almost an economic argument of we really want to spend our money on our own companies. And I don't begrudge them that. I think the kind of vicious underhanded campaign of lies and rumors is probably beyond the line of what's fair there. But, you know, every country should make a decision based on what's going to give them the most amount of deterrence. And clearly the US has carried the load there. We have the most experience, the most reps, the most innovation stimulus here. And I think it's going to take an entire allied western force to really confront the challenges across the axis of authoritarianism that's clearly present and creating chaos in the world.
T
Tyler Kendall4:10
Well, I'll keep on the international theme, if you will, because we're seeing US companies start to use Chinese open-source LLMs. From your view, does this pose national security risks?
S
Shyam Sankar4:20
Well, I think it poses what my view is that national security is not an end unto itself. It's a means to an end. And the actual end is American prosperity. And so I think it poses a threat to American prosperity. These Chinese open source models are really the result of distillation attacks. Most of this is just stolen American IP from frontier labs. And I think the frontier labs should do more to protect that IP and that's in their own economic interests. But I'm less worried about in the present moment because the gravest threat to us is not homicide, it's suicide. It's an inability to turn these tokens into economic value and generate American prosperity for it. You see that with the proposed moratorium in New York on data centers. Like turning our back on AI would be as consequential a mistake as turning our back on the atom in the '70s. And we're starting to see a burgeoning, it's just the beginning, but a burgeoning US open model ecosystem forming. Nvidia's Nemotron models are very good. I think you're going to see in the next month a slate of announcements of other American companies, non-frontier labs, sometimes called Neolabs, who are putting out open-weight models that companies are going to be able to cheaply fine-tune and capture their own alpha in weights they control.
T
Tyler Kendall5:34
In the final minute that I have you, part of the US's strategy when it comes to national security has been to have the government take equity stakes in companies that are deemed critical to national security. We know the idea has been floated when it comes to some of these frontier labs. I'm wondering what you make of this strategy. Is this the right way for the US to go about it?
S
Shyam Sankar5:56
Well, I think it's very case dependent. I'm glad it's an option on the table. I think for some companies where they need a huge equity injection, it could make a lot of sense. For other companies, based on where they are in the mix of business they do between the commercial and government world, I'm not sure it makes as much sense, but I'm glad it's an option that's on the table. It should be a consideration.
T
Tyler Kendall6:15
All right, Shyam Sankar, the Palantir Chief Technology Officer, thank you so much for joining us here on Bloomberg Television and Radio. This has been a conversation on the sidelines of Defense Summit here in