Cohere and Palantir AI Partnership

Cohere's Partnership with Palantir

Cohere, a prominent AI startup alongside OpenAI and Anthropic, achieved a valuation of $5.5 billion as of July. Notably, it was co-founded by an author of the seminal “Attention Is All You Need” research paper, a work instrumental in initiating the current large language model (LLM) revolution.

Enterprise Focus and Strategic Alliances

Headquartered in both Toronto and San Francisco, Cohere concentrates on providing AI solutions to enterprise-level clients. Unlike some competitors, it does not offer a publicly accessible consumer chatbot. Recent reports indicate a significant partnership with Palantir, mirroring a similar arrangement Anthropic established with Palantir and AWS to serve defense sector clients.

Deployment to Palantir Customers

Information revealed in a video from Palantir’s DevCon1 developer conference in November 2024 confirms that Cohere’s models are currently utilized by various Palantir customers. This was stated by Billy Trend, a Cohere engineer and former Palantir employee, during his presentation.

Trend expressed his enthusiasm for the collaboration, stating that details regarding how Cohere serves Palantir’s clientele would be forthcoming. He highlighted the technical aspects of the integration.

Specific Use Case and Capabilities

During the presentation, Trend detailed a specific deployment involving a Palantir customer with stringent data storage requirements. This customer needed the ability to perform inference in Arabic, a capability where Cohere excels.

Palantir’s customers can now access Cohere’s most recent AI models through “compute modules” integrated within the Foundry platform. Foundry is primarily designed for commercial applications, contrasting with Palantir’s older Gotham platform, which caters to defense and intelligence agencies.

Palantir's Client Base

Palantir maintains relationships with numerous large organizations, including Airbus. The company is also transparent about its extensive work with U.S. defense and intelligence communities, having recently published a manifesto outlining its vision for revitalizing the defense-tech industry.

Limited Public Disclosure

While Cohere has publicly announced partnerships with companies like Fujitsu, it has remained silent regarding its collaboration with Palantir, as evidenced by a review of its official website and press releases.

Requests for Comment

TechCrunch inquired with Cohere regarding the use of its AI in military or intelligence applications and its overall policy concerning such deployments. Cohere declined to provide a statement.

Palantir did not respond to requests for comment. It is worth noting that OpenAI is also involved in defense technology, having recently finalized a deal with Anduril.