As the third week of the war in the Middle East continues, intelligence gathered by the Pentagon is being analysed by technology from the artificial intelligence company Anthropic, on a system run by the data analytics firm Palantir. Drones developed by a defence technology startup in Arizona have emerged as a key component of the US war arsenal, while anti-drone systems developed by a Californian startup have been deployed to protect US forces in the region.
Silicon Valley made risky bets in recent years on developing defence-related technology and providing services to the US military establishment. Now those bets are paying off. From behemoths providing data systems to smaller companies offering novel weapons, tech firms such as Google, Palantir and OpenAI have found themselves at the heart of the US war effort.
Their central role amounts to an “I told you so” moment. For years, the tech industry’s efforts on defence-related offerings faced scepticism and opposition, with no clear or immediate business rewards. Many Silicon Valley engineers opposed the use of powerful technologies for killing, battles and other military purposes — concerns that persist. Despite those fears, venture capital firms have poured billions of dollars since the 2010s into startups building drones, lasers and other military systems. In January, Andreessen Horowitz, which was founded by entrepreneurs Marc Andreessen and Ben Horowitz, closed a new, almost $1.2 billion fund to invest in defence technologies.
In recent years, defence tech startups often ploughed ahead with weapons prototypes before they had government contracts. At the same time, executives like Alex Karp, CEO of Palantir, and others started cultivating more ties with the government. President Joe Biden welcomed military technology, and Trump has further embraced it. Last year, Trump issued an executive order calling for the military to update its system so it could incorporate new tools faster. His domestic policy bill last year allocated $1 trillion to defence in 2026, including for technology offered by defence tech firms.
Now the war has cemented that work, most likely leading to more business between the tech industry and the military. This month, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman agreed to bring his company’s AI systems onto the Pentagon’s classified networks. Google signed a deal to bring AI bots known as “agents” into the Defence Department. On Friday, the Army said it had awarded Anduril, a defence tech company, a $20 billion deal for AI-backed software to run on military systems.
Pentagon officials said they were excited about how well new technology like AI-related systems had performed in the US-Israeli war against Iran. OpenAI, Google and the Pentagon did not respond to requests for comment. (The New York Times has sued OpenAI and Microsoft, accusing them of copyright infringement of news content related to AI systems. The two companies have denied those claims.)
Project Maven, an AI-backed system built by Palantir for the Pentagon, is one prominent example of modern technology in the war. Maven works by layering Palantir’s data systems with AI technology from Anthropic. Anthropic’s systems analyse real-time data about battles and other war scenarios, while Palantir’s technology draws conclusions about which targets to strike. Airstrikes hit over 2,000 targets in Iran in the first four days of the war, many selected by Maven. On Thursday, Palantir’s Karp said AI was giving US forces an edge. Palantir’s stock has soared over 12% since the war began. “America is the centre of the AI revolution.” Palantir and Anthropic declined to comment.
Technologies from defence startups are also being deployed. A system that uses drones to counter other drones, called Merops, developed as a venture project by former Google CEO Eric Schmidt, has become instrumental to protecting US assets. Schmidt’s office declined to comment. Small and lightweight drones called LUCAS from SpektreWorks, a startup in Phoenix, have also been deployed in the battlefield. The LUCAS drones, which mimic Iran’s Shahed drones, are designed for one-way flights. SpektreWorks declined to comment on its work with the Pentagon.
This month, US Central Command posted footage of rows of the drones as they were readied to be sent to US forces. “These drones were originally an Iranian design,” said Adm Brad Cooper, the head of the Central Command. “We took them right back to America, made them better and fired them right back.”
The New York Times