New monopoly? Inside VC tech’s overthrow of the primes
Venture capital (VC)-backed defense tech companies like Anduril, Palantir, and Scale AI have quickly risen to prominence in the weapons industry, increasingly beating out “Big Five” defense contractors like Lockheed Martin, Boeing, and RTX (formerly Raytheon) for military contracts.
And now directly challenging traditional weapons contractors’ grip over the industry, Anduril and Palantir are forming a consortium with fellow defense tech upstarts including SpaceX, OpenAI, Saronic, and Scale AI to jointly bid for military contracts, according to reporting from the Financial Times.
In a press release announcing the consortium, Anduril and Palantir depicted the effort as a way to deliver key “technological infrastructure” to the government and other partners that would “transform America’s world-leading AI advancements into next-generation military and national security capabilities,” which they present as critical to maintaining America’s military dominance amid increasingly tenuous geopolitical conditions.