Germany's military shuns Palantir for now, cyber chief tells Handelsblatt

FRANKFURT, April 28 (Reuters) - Germany’s armed forces do not plan to award contracts to U.S. data analytics and defence software company Palantir for now, a leading military officer told the Handelsblatt newspaper.

 

"I don’t see that happening at all at the moment,"  Thomas Daum, in charge of the German military’s cyber defence, was quoted as saying in the paper’s Tuesday edition.

 

"As much as we are interested in the functionality for our own database, it is simply inconceivable at the moment to grant industry staff access to the national database," said Daum.

 

Last month, Reuters reported that Palantir’s artificial intelligence system will become an official programme of record for the Pentagon, locking in long-term use of the company’s weapons-targeting technology across the U.S. military.

 

The German army has been looking into artificial intelligence tools to analyse battlefield data more rapidly than humans.

 

(Reporting by Ludwig Burger, Editing by Linda Pasquini)