Pentagon’s $448M AI Gamble: Palantir’s Deepening Role

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An AI system that shrank a 160-hour Navy planning job to 10 minutes is now at the center of a $448 million gamble with Palantir that could strengthen America’s submarine fleet.

Story Snapshot

The Navy is scaling an AI “Ship OS” after pilots cut a 160-hour submarine-planning task to under 10 minutes.
A $448 million contract with Palantir will push the tool across the entire submarine industrial base, then surface ships.
Leaders frame the move as vital to catching up with China’s rapidly expanding, AI-enabled fleet.
Conservatives may welcome stronger deterrence yet worry about cost, oversight, and Big Tech’s growing grip on defense.

AI Jumps From Pilot Project To $448 Million Pentagon Program

The Navy’s new “Ship OS” began as a pilot at key submarine hubs like General Dynamics Electric Boat in Groton, Connecticut, and Portsmouth Naval Shipyard in Maine, where planners historically juggled sprawling spreadsheets, whiteboards, and disconnected databases just to build and adjust schedules. According to Navy and industry accounts, one complex schedule-planning job that used to eat about 160 hours of manual work was cut to less than ten minutes when run through Palantir’s AI-driven platform.

Those early results led to an initial $448 million contract to scale the system across the Submarine Industrial Base, a network that includes private builders, public shipyards, and critical suppliers responsible for nuclear-powered attack and ballistic-missile submarines. The platform acts as a unifying data layer, pulling information from legacy planning tools, inventory systems, and engineering databases into a single picture commanders and managers can query in real time.

The Navy says AI cut a 160-hour submarine-planning job down to just 10 minutes — now it's investing $448 million to go bigger https://t.co/KRJ2piWHL6

— SeaWaves Magazine (@seawaves_mag) December 10, 2025

Fixing Backlogs While China Races Ahead With Its Own AI Fleet

For years, the submarine enterprise has struggled with schedule slips and cost growth on programs like the Virginia-class and Columbia-class boats, even as operational demand kept rising. Only a few public and private yards can build or overhaul nuclear submarines, and many specialized parts come from single-source suppliers, so any disruption ripples through the entire system. At the same time, Beijing has been rapidly expanding and modernizing the People’s Liberation Army Navy, with U.S. officials warning that China is aggressively weaving AI into shipbuilding, logistics, and naval operations to gain an edge.

Palantir’s Growing Role And The Risks Of Government Overreach

Palantir’s deeper integration into Navy operations raises questions familiar to conservatives skeptical of Big Tech’s power and federal overreach. The company already maintains substantial data-analytics contracts across the Army, Air Force, and other agencies, and Ship OS extends that footprint into the heart of America’s undersea deterrent. Because the platform sits on top of existing systems and becomes the lens through which leaders view risk, schedules, and supply chains, whoever controls that software gains significant influence over how problems are defined and which trade-offs are surfaced for decision-makers.

Balancing Efficiency, Security, And Conservative Priorities

From a liberty-minded, America First perspective, this effort sits at a crossroads of promising innovation and legitimate concern. On one hand, dramatically reducing manual planning hours, clearing material backlogs, and enabling more efficient use of existing yards aligns with the goal of a strong, prepared military that does not endlessly demand new blank checks from taxpayers. Reclaiming lost time in the Columbia-class schedule, for example, directly supports nuclear deterrence, one of the few federal responsibilities explicitly tied to national survival rather than fashionable social experiments. If done right, Ship OS could mark a return to prioritization of core defense over ideology, helping the Trump-era push to rebuild hard power while trimming waste.