The controversial company Palantir courts Switzerland | Press review n°33
The U.S. firm proposes its software to the federal government and weaves connections from Zurich. Here is a selection of news about AI from December 1 to 14, 2025.
Welcome to the 33rd press review of Artificial reality. This issue is devoted to the California company Palantir and to the threats related to artificial intelligence.
I will be on holidays in two weeks so I will publish the next press review in mid-January. Have a good read and happy holiday season!
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The controversial company Palantir courts Switzerland
Data‑analytics firm Palantir has proposed its services to many federal offices and to the Swiss army in recent years. It received at least nine refusals, notably because of its links to intelligence agencies, according to a two‑part investigation by Swiss media Republik and the research collective WAV, which was commented by Le Temps.
Palantir, which often uses artificial intelligence for data processing, is mainly known for its connections with the United States Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency (ICE). Its employees use the company’s software to track, monitor, arrest, and expel irregular migrants. ICE’s massive deportation campaign has become particularly intense, and sometimes violent, since Donald Trump returned to the White House.
Where ICE Has Taken The Most People (Wired)
Palantir is also suspected of creating a massive database on the entire population in the United States, which some Democratic senators describe as “a surveillance nightmare.”
The company’s activities, however, are not limited to the country where its headquarters are located. It has contracts with governments, police forces and intelligence services around the world, including in the United States, the United Kingdom, Canada and Australia. It also sells a program mainly intended for civilian use called Foundry. Many companies purchased it to integrate, analyze and visualize data on a large scale in order to optimize their processes and facilitate their decision‑making.
Palantir’s programs are also used in war zones, notably in Ukraine and Gaza. In April 2025, the cofounder and CEO of the company, Alex Karp, was interrupted during a conference at the The Hill & Valley Forum by a woman who accused Palantir of killing Palestinians. Karp admitted that his firm’s software was indeed used in Gaza to kill “mostly terrorists.”
‘Our AI kills Palestinians’: Palantir CEO Alex Karp on Gaza war (Middle East Eye)
In a call with investors in 2024, Alex Karp said that “Palantir is here to disrupt and make the institutions we partner with the very best in the world and, when it’s necessary, to scare enemies and on occasion kill them.”
The other principal cofounder of Palantir is Peter Thiel, an influential investor who is as controversial as the company he created in 2003 after the 9/11 attacks, as the United States had launched a vast “war on terror.” A supporter of Donald Trump since 2016, the billionaire wrote a few years earlier: “I no longer believe that freedom and democracy are compatible.”
Since the beginning of Trump’s second term, Palantir signed a $10 billion contract with the United States army and its valuation has quadrupled, exceeding $400 billion.
Listen: Palantir is Thriving Under Trump (Tech Won’t Save Us)
Present in Zurich
Palantir is present in Switzerland since 2021. It first opened an office in Schwyz and then in Zurich, where it employs around sixty people. The country’s largest city has even become one of the company’s main bases for its international activities.
Watch (in French): Zurich, le nouveau hub européen de l’intelligence artificielle (RTS)
The software publisher, with 4000 employees worldwide, has however not succeeded in convincing Swiss authorities to use its programs. The authors of the investigation published by Republik were able to document its various attempts in the country by filing 59 requests based on the Federal Transparency Act to 41 federal offices, most of which responded favorably.
Several concerns
Palantir participated, for example, in a 2020 bidding process for the IT system of the Swiss army intelligence service, without success. According to Armasuisse, the offer did not meet a mandatory criterion of the project requirements. This precise criterion remains unknown to this day and that office refuses to discuss it.
The company tried again four years later, addressing directly the army chief, Thomas Süssli. A European senior executive of the firm promoted, among other solutions, a software that would “apply algorithms or artificial intelligence to data.” However, an analysis commissioned by the general staff did not convince the Swiss authorities.
The report’s authors recognized the performance of Palantir’s software but highlighted the negative consequences that such a partnership with a foreign company could have on sovereignty and data security. Army experts also think that the United States government and its intelligence services could potentially access sensitive data that would be processed by Palantir.
The Swiss army also expressed ethical concerns because massive data collection and analysis could intrude on the privacy of the persons concerned. There is also a risk that some people could be wrongly targeted because of statistical correlations.
Palantir also offered its software to the Federal office of public health for contact tracing during the coronavirus pandemic and for the monitoring of the Covid‑19 vaccination strategy. The company also approached the Federal office of computer science and communications, the Federal office of statistics, the State secretariat for international financial affairs and the Service against money-laundering.
Connections in Switzerland
Even though Palantir has not established a commercial relationship with Swiss authorities for now, it does not intend to stop there. In an interview given to Republik and WAV, a Palantir executive stated that the company has offered its products to various offices without success “so far” and that it remains very open to a cooperation.
The federal government is not the only potential client of the company and it already maintains long‑standing partnerships with local actors. Firms such as Swiss Re and Novartis, for example, use Palantir’s software to analyze their commercial data.
Last year, the publisher Ringier (owner of Blick and L’Illustré, among others) extended their contract with the California company for five years, mainly for artificial intelligence solutions. Laura Rudas, the executive vice‑president of Palantir, has also sat on the board of the Swiss firm.
The latest issue of the magazine Interview by Ringier actually contains an interview with Alex Karp, which was also published on Blick’s website. That conversation was pointed out on social medias for its lack of critical questions and for the omission of the conflict of interest between Palantir and Ringier, Le Temps reports.
Palantir is also a member of Digitalswitzerland, an organization promoting digital innovation which was founded in 2015 by Marc Walder, the CEO of Ringier. It notably donated 150,000 Swiss francs (around $190,000) to the political campaign in favor of the electronic identity in Switzerland.
On this topic: An electronic identity in Switzerland, good or bad idea?
Estelle Pannatier, advocacy manager at AlgorithmWatch Switzerland, believes that some services offered by Palantir run counter to the values of a democratic society. She watches the links the company has woven in Switzerland with concern: “It is reassuring that Swiss authorities have not fallen under the spell of Palantir’s aggressive marketing,” she told Le Temps. “However, the opaque links between large Swiss companies and Palantir are worrying.”
Trump Taps Palantir AI To Spy On All Americans (Breaking Points)
Seven important news
Pete Hegseth Says the Pentagon’s New Chatbot Will Make America ‘More Lethal’ (404 Media)
Border Patrol Agent Recorded Raid with Meta’s Ray-Ban Smart Glasses (404 Media)
AI chatbots can be wooed into crimes with poetry (The Verge)
ChatGPT Told a Violent Stalker to Embrace the ‘Haters,’ Indictment Says (404 Media)
Scientists Are Increasingly Worried AI Will Sway Elections (404 Media)
Data centers in Oregon might be helping to drive an increase in cancer and miscarriages (The Verge)
How China is using AI to extend censorship and surveillance (The Washington Post)
🎥 Watch
The threats from AI
Independent U.S. senator Bernie Sanders published a video where he lists the main threats related to artificial intelligence. He begins his speech by addressing the fact that a handful of powerful tech billionaires are currently shaping the future of humanity “without any democratic input or oversight.”
He then talks about the incoming loss of millions of jobs because of automation and robotics, AI-enabled mass surveillance and its threat on democracy, the social risks of chatbots, the impact of data centers on the environment, the existential threat of artificial superintelligence, and the way wars could be launched more easily in the future as human soldiers will be replaced by robots.
The threats from AI are real (Senator Bernie Sanders)
Seven important videos
Trump To Ban States From Regulating AI (Breaking Points)
The Growing Surveillance State | Jessica Burbank (The Majority Report)
AI Insider Warns: “This Ends Much Worse Than You Think” (The Diary of a CEO Clips)
Big Tech’s AI Debt Will Crash the Economy (Vanessa Wingårdh)
Sam Altman Declares ‘Code Red’ at OpenAI & Delays Ads Effort (The Information)
Sam Altman Says Raises Babies With ChatGPT (Breaking Points)
Revealed: Sam Altman’s OpenAI Is ‘Money Loss Machine’ (Breaking Points)
🔈 Listen
Palantir and the rise of the surveillance state
In the podcast Today in Focus by The Guardian, journalist Nosheen Iqbal interviews author Michael Steinberger, whose essay The Philosopher in the Valley: Alex Karp, Palantir and the Rise of the Surveillance State was published in November.
They talk about the CEO of Palantir, the history of the company, its activities worldwide, and its relations with the U.S. army.
Journalist Johana Bhuiyan concludes this episode by describing the links between Palantir and ICE, as well as its connections with the National Health Service in the United Kingdom.
Listen to Today in Focus on The Guardian
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See you soon,
Arnaud
