Palantir Technologies reported a stunning 93% surge in total revenue for its fiscal second quarter, reaching $1.94 billion, driven by explosive 149% growth in commercial revenue. The company's stock jumped as much as 16.3% in pre-market trading on Tuesday, following the release of what CEO Alex Karp described as "extraordinary" results.
Commercial revenue soared to $764 million, up from the prior-year period, while government revenue rose 90% to $809 million. The results handily beat the consensus estimate of $1.8 billion from Refinitiv. For the full year, Palantir guided revenue in the range of $8.15 billion to $8.158 billion, with commercial revenue expected to exceed $3.424 billion.
In a shareholder letter, Karp attributed the strong performance to a sweeping "AI sovereignty" movement, where enterprises are increasingly reluctant to hand over their proprietary data to frontier model developers like OpenAI, Google, Anthropic, or Meta. "A revolutionary wave of independence and AI sovereignty is now fully underway," Karp wrote. "Our customers do not want to become vassals of the large model labs. Institutions worldwide are waking up to the risks of ceding control of their operations to model developers."
Karp told CNBC's Seema Mody in an exclusive interview, "Don't get hung up on consensus estimates. To my knowledge, no company of our size has achieved half our growth rate." He added that the company is "incredibly optimistic" about the future, driven by the AI sovereignty revolution.
Palantir's platform helps enterprises integrate AI into their existing systems and data, a key differentiator. Citi analysts noted in a Tuesday research note that the demand for data privacy creates a "differentiated competitive advantage" for Palantir, and the quarterly results "further erode the bearish view on increased competition" in the AI sector. The analysts added, "We believe the print reinforces Palantir's position as a core beneficiary of the enterprise AI adoption wave. The accelerating commercial demand proves it is capturing demand as robust as top-tier native AI companies." They also highlighted a significant rebound in U.S. commercial business, which allays fears of a slowdown, and predicted a "meaningful" upside for the stock.
Despite the strong report, Palantir's stock has declined 29% year-to-date, reflecting investor caution in the broader AI sector. The strong second-quarter results, however, appear to have reversed that sentiment, with shares surging in pre-market trading.