Billionaire Alex Karp’s Palantir names Nebius as preferred sovereign AI infrastructure partner

Palantir Technologies, an artificial intelligence (AI) and big data analytics firm co-founded and led by African-American tech billionaire Alex Karp, and Nebius Group have entered a strategic partnership to provide Palantir’s commercial customers with access to Nebius’ AI-native cloud and computing infrastructure, giving eligible organizations greater control over their data, models and computing resources.

Under the partnership, Palantir has designated Nebius as its preferred sovereign AI infrastructure partner. Following integration, Nebius’ computing and inference endpoints will be brought inside its enterprise perimeter, allowing eligible customers to access the infrastructure while maintaining control over their AI environments.

Nebius infrastructure to expand sovereign AI options

The partnership is designed to help commercial organizations deploy and operate their own AI models on dedicated infrastructure rather than relying entirely on closed, general-purpose AI systems. Eligible Palantir customers will be able to deploy open models on Nebius infrastructure and continually adapt them using proprietary data for specific business applications.

The companies said this approach could enable organizations to develop AI systems optimized for individual use cases while retaining control of both the underlying data and resulting models.

Palantir’s Sovereign AI Operating System, built around its Artificial Intelligence Platform (AIP), Ontology, Foundry and Apollo technologies, provides the authorization and isolation layer for organizations seeking to maintain control over their AI systems.

Partnership targets rising demand for AI compute

The two firms will also work together to accelerate the deployment of additional computing capacity for Palantir customers.

The companies said this could include modular data-center deployments at locations where power is already available, potentially allowing new AI infrastructure to be brought online more quickly.

Palantir co-founder and CEO Alex Karp said Nebius’ infrastructure would allow customers to run their own AI models under conditions they control, while its software provides the framework for maintaining sovereignty.

Nebius founder and CEO Arkady Volozh said organizations increasingly require both large-scale AI infrastructure and control over their data and models.

AI-native infrastructure strengthens partnership

Alex Karp, co-founder and CEO of Palantir Technologies, has an estimated net worth of $18.5 billion, according to Forbes. This was up from a fortune of less than $3 billion two years ago.

Palantir selected Nebius for its AI-native infrastructure, built specifically for demanding AI workloads and designed for integration with its Sovereign AI Operating System. The partnership positions both companies to meet growing demand for AI infrastructure that gives businesses greater control over their data, models and computing resources.