The American Palantir is no longer in the odor of sanctity in the French secret services. According to The echoes, three candidates passed the first stage of the call for tenders for a new DGSI big data project. Nine competitors were originally on the starting line.
In detail, part of the call for tenders concerns data enrichment. For example, it is to convert audio into text, or to identify people in an image or sound. The second batch concerns processing and analysis. The objective here is to identify the connections between the data.
The selected candidates
The alliance of Atos and Thales (Athea) was a candidate for both parts of the call for tenders, and was selected for the second part, on the analysis part. Created in 2021, Athea was designed to develop “a sovereign platform combining massive data processing and artificial intelligence”. Through this joint venture, Thalès and Atos want to set up a platform for processing sensitive data in the field of defense and security. Athea is already working on the Artemis project, the “Big Data” platform of the French Ministry of the Armed Forces.
The Frenchman ChapsVision was selected for both parts. On the first part, there is also the tricolor editor Blueway.
Exit the Altrnativ companies of Eric Léandri (ex-Qwant), Sopra, and Bloom.
Review period for remaining candidates
Now opens a review period for the remaining candidates, which should last between 6 and 18 months. In the meantime, Palantir, chosen in an emergency by the Ministry of the Interior after the attacks of 2015, will continue to provide its solutions.
At the end of 2019, the French secret services had, for lack of a French solution, renewed their contract with Palantir.