The pace of the American offensive in Iran has marked a turning point. In just a few days, the number of targets reached has skyrocketed to levels that previously required months of operations.
Behind that acceleration there is not only more military capacity. There is a structural change: the massive incorporation of artificial intelligence in decision-making.
Current systems allow processing in real time enormous volumes of data coming from satellites, drones, radars, and other sources. What previously required hours of analysis is now resolved in seconds. And that completely transforms the battlefield.
Palantir: from antiterrorism to total war
At the center of this model is Palantir, the technology company co-founded by Peter Thiel. Born in the post-9/11 context, the company specialized in data analysis for intelligence and security.
Over time, its presence has extended throughout the U.S. state structure, from intelligence agencies to the Department of Defense. Today, its technology forms part of the operational core of the military strategy.
The system used by the Pentagon integrates information from multiple sources into a single platform, allowing for the identification of targets, evaluation of scenarios, and execution of operations with unprecedented speed.
The “kill chain” automated: the new military paradigm
The key concept is the so-called “attack chain”. From the detection of a target to the execution of the strike, the entire process is increasingly assisted by algorithms.
This does not mean that decisions are completely automatic, but it does mean that the margin of human intervention is reduced in terms of time and volume of information.
The result is a faster, more efficient, and, at the same time, more complex war to control.
More speed, more power and more doubts
The promise of artificial intelligence in the military sphere is clear: precision, speed, and capacity for anticipation. But that same advance opens difficult questions to resolve.
To what extent are algorithms capable of correctly distinguishing targets? What happens if the system makes a mistake? Can the speed in decision-making reduce human supervision capacity?
While the conflict evolves on the ground, so does it in the markets. Companies linked to defense technology are experiencing differentiated behavior compared to the rest of the sector.
In the case of Palantir, the context of war has boosted interest in its solutions, reinforcing its position as a strategic provider at a key moment.
Peter Thiel and the vision behind the model
The figure of Peter Thiel adds an additional layer to the phenomenon. The entrepreneur has been defending for years a vision where technology and state power are deeply connected.
Its bet on tools that amplify the State's decision-making capacity fits with the current model: a war where the advantage is not only in strength, but in information and in the speed to process it.