By
Steve Muchoki
August 8th, 2023
Market analysts praised Palantir for their efforts in building an unprecedented AI fortress with the CEO calling for increased collaboration between the tech sector and the government.
On Monday, July 31st, shares of Palantir Technologies Inc (NYSE: PLTR) surged by a staggering 11% as the company decided to tap into investors’ expectations for its artificial intelligence software, just before its earnings report in the upcoming week. Palantir, a data analytics company known for working with the US government, provides AI-powered services to different organizations.
The CEO, Alex Karp, mentioned a high demand for their new AI platform, leading to a significant increase in the company’s shares this year. Since the beginning of 2023, the PLTR stock price is already up by more than 200%.
As of Monday’s closing, the PLTR stock price was trading 11.40% up at a price of $19.84. Wedbush analysts have given an outperform rating to PLTR stock with a target price of $25.
William Blair analysts also raised their second-quarter revenue estimates for Palantir from $529 million to $551 million. They believe the company will see a boost from its SPAC customers, even those that have declared bankruptcy. The analysts noted that SPACs had a positive impact on the first-quarter earnings, and they anticipate this trend to continue in the second quarter.
Palantir Riding the AI Wave
Market analysts are also betting on the AI development undertaken by Palantir. During an interview on CNBC’s “The Exchange,” Dan Ives, managing director of equity research at Wedbush Securities, compared Palantir to the soccer star Lionel Messi, calling it “the Messi of AI.”
He expressed confidence in the company’s ability to monetize its AI capabilities, describing Palantir as having built an unparalleled AI fortress. In a note, the Wedbush analyst wrote:
“We believe PLTR will capitalize on the expansion of new use cases over the next 6-12 months given its large partner ecosystem and extensive product capabilities, by servicing the rapidly increasing demand for enterprise-scale generative artificial intelligence”.
Palantir CEO Alex Karp also acknowledged the frenzy surrounding AI as well as the technological risks that it brings along. In an opinion piece published by the New York Times, Karp called for increased collaboration between the tech sector and the government.
Karp said that that attention should be “urgently directed at building the technical architecture and regulatory framework that would construct moats and guardrails around AI”. However, he argued against any slowdown in the tech research and innovation that a few leaders have called for. The Palantir CEO said that if the US doesn’t invest in AI, other nations will certainly do it.
“This is an arms race of a different kind, and it has begun,” Karp wrote. Later, he added that “the ability of free and democratic societies to prevail requires something more than moral appeal. It requires hard power, and hard power in this century will be built on software.”