Palantir announces first two TITAN deliveries

Palantir has delivered the first two Tactical Intelligence Targeting Access Node (TITAN) systems to the US Army under a $178 million contract signed in 2024, according to a statement released by Palantir on the 7th March, 2025. 

The company was contracted to deliver ten prototype TITAN systems, each consisting of a truck with a mission module to the rear and a trailer that is used to carry generators and other equipment like a satellite communications link. 

The initial contract award indicated that the ten systems would be broken down into five advanced systems and five basic systems. Initial reporting in 2022 indicated that the advanced variant was truck-based, employing the Family of Medium Tactical Vehicle fleet’s M1083, while the basic variant was to be mounted on a JLTV – a 4×4 tactical vehicle. 

The selection was made after a competitive prototyping phase which led to trials at a capstone exercise prior to selection. It took just six months to move from the design to the prototype phase, according to Palantir’s marketing materials released in 2023. 

The first prototype was delivered to the US Army’s Joint Base Lewis-McChord in July 2024 and by December that year, the vehicle had been accepted into service by the 1st Multi-Domain Task Force (MDTF) the US Army’s new long-range precision strike unit designed to degrade adversary air defences and stand-off strike weapons. 

The TITAN programme was initiated in 2021 with Raytheon and Palantir selected to develop prototypes and Northrop Grumman awarded a separate contract to build two pre-prototypes for the Army’s Tactical Exploitation of National Capabilities office and the Defense Innovation Unit. Palantir was eventually selected after the system had been trialled during Project Convergence, one test included a test of the ability to send images from a satellite to the commanders of weapon systems. Palantir eventually partnered with Northrop Grumman in March 2024 for the company to lead on design maturation and integration.

Other partners in the Palantir consortium include Anduril, L3Harris, and the Sierra Nevada Corporation. Anduril led the initial development phase, according to a company press release from 2024, and also appears to provide the command and control software for the system. 

Tech profile: TITAN

TITAN is designed to take intelligence inputs from the land, air, and space, integrate them into a single understanding of the operational environment, and provide targeting assistance to the commander on the ground. It is enabled by artificial intelligence including machine learning algorithms, the purpose of which is unclear, although it likely includes the ability to detect and recognise targets, and to fuse information into a single recognisable picture. The MDTF that TITAN is supporting is equipped with Tomahawk cruise missiles that may have a range in excess of 1,500 km, and is expected to field the Long-Range Hypersonic Weapon in the next decade, extending that range to 2,700 km. Targeting at those ranges will not be possible without access to space-based intelligence. This is typically provided at a higher echelon or through a command chain, which would delay the rapid targeting process the MDTFs are meant to deliver. So, TITAN in that sense provides access to many different forms of intelligence at the level relevant to the commander, potentially avoiding the need to rely on other assets to support its targeting. 

Calibre comment

It is worth noting that the concept of multi-domain operations (MDO) that the MDTFs and other elements of the US armed forces are supposed to be pursuing are unproven and untested in combat. One concern, as highlighted in a 2024 article by Aurelius Lab from the UK, is that it promises a route to winning a war that it cannot deliver and that the rhetoric around it does not match the realities on the ground. There are other concerns, including that the focus on developing capabilities for MDO distracts from conventional and well-proven technologies. 

The MDTFs are one example; the LRHW is estimated to cost $81 million for the first few missiles produced, falling to $41 million per missile if 300 are procured, according to a study conducted by the Congressional Budget Office in January 2023. The concept of operations for hypersonics broadly holds that they will only be used against very high value targets, but even if 300 missiles were procured for an estimated cost of $12.3 billion, it is difficult to say with certainty that they would contribute to a decisive outcome in a war with China. It is, however, easier to show through historical analysis that well-equipped conventional forces backed by an industrial base that can reliably replace losses will be more likely to succeed in a protracted war with a large adversary.