SEOUL: Palantir Technologies Inc is entering into a deal with South Korea’s Hyundai Heavy Industries Group, valued at US$20mil over five years to expand its partnership.

The conglomerate’s shipbuilding affiliates, including Hyundai Heavy, will use Palantir’s operating system, known as Foundry, to strengthen data-driven decision making, Palantir’s chief operating officer, Shyam Sankar, told Reuters.

Sankar said companies in the export-driven economy, faced with supply chain snarls and volatility in raw material prices, are increasingly seeking to make interconnected decisions with their data that help get immediate results in weeks.

The deal is in addition to existing agreements with the conglomerate’s refinery affiliate Hyundai Oilbank and construction machinery maker Hyundai Doosan Infracore, valued at over US$25mil combined, expanding Palantir’s footprint in the country.

Palantir is also actively working to extend partnerships with South Korea’s government as well as private sectors, and has formally opened an office in Seoul.

In five years, Sankar estimated, the United States will likely still take up about 60% of Palantir’s sales, but Asia’s portion of the remaining 40% will grow to be a large part as the firm seeks to expand in the region.

The firm is currently focused on building its business in Japan, South Korea and Singapore.

The firm, co-founded by billionaire entrepreneur Peter Thiel to aid in US counter-terrorism operations, now derives almost half of its sales from the private sector.

 - Reuters