Palantir's Shyam Sankar: US Is At War With China In AI—And The Time To Act Was 'Yesterday'

Palantir Technologies Inc.'s PLTR chief technology officer Shyam Sankar warned that the U.S. is in an "AI arms race" with China, calling for urgent action to maintain dominance as the race for artificial intelligence escalates.

What Happened: During Palantir's fourth-quarter earnings call, Sankar responded to a question about the impact of China's DeepSeek AI model on Palantir. 

“One of the obvious lessons of DeepSeekR1 is something that we’ve been saying for the last two years, which is that the models are commoditizing,” Sankar said, underscoring that both closed and open-source AI models are becoming increasingly similar while inference costs are plummeting.

See Also: Palantir Sounds Alarm On China’s DeepSeek, Citing National Security Threat — But Won’t Drop Clients Who Use It

However, he argued that the bigger concern is not just AI competition, but an all-encompassing economic, diplomatic, and technological war with China.

“We are at war with China. We are in an AI arms race,” Sankar declared, noting that he had disagreed with OpenAI CEO Sam Altman at the Senate AI Summit over whether cooperation with China in AI development was viable.

He said now that OpenAI is accusing China of stealing U.S. AI intellectual property, it should erase any illusions about a collaborative approach. “We have to wake up with the respect for our adversary and realize that we are competing.”

Sankar stated that the AI race is a “winner-take-all” competition, requiring a nationwide effort. “M day was yesterday,” he warned, stressing that the time to mobilize is now.

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Why It Matters: Palantir posted fourth-quarter revenue of $827.52 million, surpassing the $775.91 million estimate. For the next quarter, it projects revenue between $858 million and $862 million, above the $799.35 million forecast.

Full-year 2025 revenue is expected to range from $3.74 billion to $3.76 billion, exceeding the $3.52 billion estimate.

Last month, DeepSeek’s AI model stirred significant attention on Wall Street, with Chinese state-affiliated accounts reportedly amplifying its launch. The U.S. is also investigating DeepSeek’s access to advanced Nvidia Corp's semiconductors, potentially violating an AI technology embargo.

Price Movement: Palantir’s shares jumped 22.75% in after-hours trading to $102.79. Earlier on Monday, the stock closed at $83.74, up 1.52%, according to Benzinga Pro data.

Photo via Shutterstock

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Disclaimer: This content was partially produced with the help of Benzinga Neuro and was reviewed and published by Benzinga editors.