With Palantir Technologies set to win its most valuable contract across the UK public sector, worth an expected £75 million over three years with the Ministry of Defence  (MoD);

Robert Stoneman, Service Director for Public Sector at GlobalData, a leading data and analytics company, offers his view:

“Winning the £75 million MoD digital transformation contract represents a significant increase in UK public sector revenue. The US data giants have won several other large deals within the UK public sector, valued at £98 million to date. This includes £46 million of existing contracts with the MoD, one of which was worth £28 million for the provision and support of a Search Visualisation and Analysis System (PARETO), and £25 million worth of contracts with the NHS.

“Supplying short-term data analytic platforms results in being awarded larger, more valuable contracts further down the line. On three occasions over the previous two years, short-term deals for data integration services have been awarded by the MoD to Palantir, followed by one longer £10 million contract to provide the same service.

“This will buoy Palantir after the recent £400 million NHS opportunity for its Federated Data Platform (FDP), which Palantir is bidding for, was broken up to ‘safeguard’ service delivery. Palantir is still the front-runner to win the main data platform element worth £360 million, though, if so, it will be prevented from bidding on other elements of the service. As a result, this additional work with the MoD will more than make up for this.”