The UK Parliament has warned of the country's dependence on Palantir. With the contract expanding from the NHS's Federated Data Platform into healthcare, policing and defence, and reaching approximately ¥68 billion, concerns over AI vendor lock-in are coming to the fore.
In June 2026, the UK Parliament's Science, Innovation and Technology Committee strongly criticised the government's relationship with US-based Palantir Technologies. The committee described the country's dependence on the company as an “unacceptable vulnerability” and called on the government, with a contract review due in 2027, to consider bringing the system in-house or moving to another provider.
Palantir is the central company behind the NHS's Federated Data Platform, a system that integrates hospital medical data to streamline surgery scheduling, discharges and pharmaceutical inventories. The contract is reportedly worth up to £330 million (approximately ¥68 billion).
The system is expanding beyond government into areas including healthcare organisations, policing and defence. It has been explained that vendor lock-in can arise when data accumulates in a particular company's cloud and operational systems are adapted to that company's proprietary APIs and data formats.
The committee identified vendor lock-in as a problem not only because of the risk of information leaks and incorrect AI decisions, but also because dependence on a particular foreign company can make long-term operations difficult. It called for stronger internal controls and measures to ensure the system can be migrated.