Mercury Systems and Palantir Technologies just agreed to automate the exact process that once nearly cost Mercury its credibility with the Pentagon.
Three years ago, the Andover, Massachusetts, defense electronics maker was writing down earnings and answering to an activist investor because its factories could not deliver on schedule.
Now it is handing that problem to the company built on turning chaotic government data into usable decisions.
Mercury (MRCY) makes the ruggedized processing hardware that lets radar systems, jets, and missiles handle enormous volumes of data in real time.
Palantir (PLTR) makes the software the U.S. military increasingly relies on to fuse intelligence and logistics data into a single operating picture. Combining them is less about new technology and more about repairing an old weakness.
What Palantir will actually do inside Mercury’s plants
Under the agreement, first detailed in a Seeking Alpha report on Monday, Aug. 3, Palantir will deploy two initial workflows inside Mercury’s factories to streamline material planning and cut manual scheduling work.
The company will also build what it calls an enterprise ontology, essentially a digital twin of Mercury’s operations, using Palantir’s Foundry platform. That system is meant to pull data from across Mercury’s supply chain into one place so managers can catch problems before they cause delays.
Partnering with Palantir will enable Mercury to further drive automation and efficiency in our supply chain.
The effort is funded through the government’s Tradewind Prototype Agreement, a vehicle the Pentagon uses to fast-track new technology into defense production. That detail matters because it shows the government is not just approving this partnership. It is paying for it.
Government-funded pilots carry more weight with investors than ordinary vendor deals, since the Pentagon has real money riding on the outcome.
John Lamparski / Getty Images
The last time Mercury’s factories fell behind, it cost the company dearly
Mercury’s operational problems became public in 2023, when the board pushed out its previous leadership under pressure from activist investor JANA Partners and installed Ballhaus as chief executive.
At the time, roughly 20 of the company’s 300 active programs were running so far over budget that they dragged fiscal 2023 earnings down by $56 million, according to a Washington Technology report.
Related: Palantir CEO admits AI would make him 20 times richer
Adjusted EBITDA margin fell to 13.6% of revenue that year, down from 20.3% in fiscal 2022.
Ballhaus spent the following two years cutting costs and pushing troubled programs toward stable production.
That work has started to pay off. Mercury’s backlog climbed to nearly $1.3 billion by the third quarter of fiscal 2024, up 17% year over year, according to the company’s own earnings release. The Palantir deal extends that turnaround from the balance sheet to the factory floor itself.
Expanding the defense network
Mercury is not an isolated bet. Palantir has spent the past two years assembling relationships across the defense industrial base, the loose network of suppliers that build the parts larger contractors depend on.
- Palantir and Anduril are organizing a consortium with SpaceX, OpenAI, and other technology firms to challenge legacy prime contractors for Pentagon work, Reuters reported.
- NATO awarded a contract to Anduril and Palantir to run its Enhanced Air Command and Control Data Platform, Al Jazeera confirmed in July.
- The Aug. 3 announcement described the Mercury deal as one piece of a broader push to speed up delivery timelines across major U.S. defense suppliers, not just one company.
Notably, Mercury and Palantir’s own statement referred to the Pentagon by its rebranded name, the Department of War, NPR noted. The Trump administration adopted the title last year, even though only Congress can make it permanent.
Several outlets covering the deal Aug. 3 still called it the Department of Defense, a small inconsistency that hints at how unevenly the rename has been absorbed across the industry it governs.
More Palantir:
- Palantir CEO admits AI would make him 20 times richer
- Microsoft CEO adds fuel to Palantir CEO’s AI warning
- Palantir CEO has a blunt verdict on OpenAI and Anthropic
The deal landed hours before a much bigger test for Palantir
The timing was not incidental. Palantir reported its second-quarter earnings after the Aug. 3 close, delivering a massive beat with revenue surging 93% year over year to $1.935 billion.
The stock has traded well below its late-2025 high for months, with investors debating whether the valuation still makes sense, despite a long streak of beating estimates.
A supply chain deal tied to a real government funding vehicle gives investors something concrete to point to beyond software subscriptions and AI hype. Shares of Mercury surged 8.7% on the news, while Palantir shares also rose in Monday trading.
Investors watching Palantir’s earnings should treat the Mercury deal as a preview of the argument the company will make on its call: that its value now extends past dashboards and into the physical production of the weapons America builds.
Whether that argument holds will depend less on one factory in Massachusetts than on how many more defense suppliers make the same trade Mercury just did.
Related: Palantir CEO has a blunt verdict on OpenAI and Anthropic
