Pulling off the extraordinary feat of growing much faster even as it gets much larger, Palantir is also reframing customer expectations for AI by claiming that it has moved beyond software to “AI infrastructure” and that too many other tech vendors are pumping out ineffective “AI slop.” That’s some brash talk from a company that’s by far the smallest on the Cloud Wars Top 10 and that’s flown well under the radar for most of its existence — and by the way, happy 23rd birthday today, Palantir! But the astonishing Q1 financial results and future guidance that Palantir posted earlier this week give it massive credibility to speak publicly and loudly about its perceptions of what’s really going on among AI vendors and more importantly among customers betting their futures on AI technologies. Let me first offer a quick recap of those breathtaking numbers, and then we’ll dig into the repercussions of the new terminology and categories Palantir is jamming into the public consciousness. The slides below from the Palantir Q1 2026 Business Update presentation tell a story of remarkably outsized growth even within the highly competitive context of the greatest growth market the world has ever known: But of...