Palantir and Anduril are reportedly forming a technology consortium to bid on defense contracts

Two major defense technology players, Palantir and Anduril, are talking about forming a consortium to bid on Pentagon contracts with technology companies including SpaceX, OpenAI, Saronic and Scale AI. A report in the Financial Times.

The FT says the aim is to challenge the dominance of “major” defense companies such as Lockheed Martin, Raytheon and Boeing. One unnamed participant described it as an effort to “provide a new generation of defense contractors,” while another said it would be a more efficient way to sell state-of-the-art weapons and other technology to the government.

Initial partnerships could be announced in January, according to the report.

Palantir and Anduril (both named after magical objects in JRR Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings) hinted that something like this was in the works earlier this month. integration announcement Between Palantir’s AI Platform and Anduril’s Lattice software. At the time, the companies said they were “launching a new consortium to ensure the US government leads the world in artificial intelligence.”