Jacobs and Palantir are helping transform the design, delivery, operation and management of infrastructure and national security systems around the world

Since announcing our partnership in March 2022 to collaborate on targeting data and technology solutions for the infrastructure and national security markets, Jacobs and Palantir set out to transform the design, delivery, operation and maintenance (O&M) of infrastructure and national security systems around the world.

Leveraging our existing O&M portfolio, as well as proprietary machine learning modules and wastewater process optimization tools like Replica™, we developed a dynamic management solution suite in Palantir Foundry that connects predictive AI modeling with day-to-day site operations to optimize power, chemical usage and asset management across plant sites.

The water data analytics solution, specifically, aggregates and analyzes plant data to manage and optimize water and wastewater treatment plant O&M aimed at helping reduce costs and improving plant performance.

“As part of Jacobs’ Data Solutions and Climate Response accelerators within our Boldly Moving Forward strategy, the Jacobs and Palantir solutions leverage data securely to optimize operations and maintenance at plants across the country,” says Jacobs President & COO Bob Pragada. “Leveraging AI and machine learning to address the global energy challenge, particularly in water and wastewater treatment – one of the highest energy consumers – saves on materials and energy while setting the foundation for our intelligent O&M portfolio.”

Jacobs and Palantir are actively deploying this solution suite at a dozen Jacobs-operated facilities this year, including Agua Nueva WWTP in Pima County, Arizona, where we were able to reduce annual blower energy consumption. Based on these findings, we are optimistic we can reduce O&M costs by 10-30% for future facilities.

“The protection and integrity of our water delivery and treatment systems is vital to our national security,” says Alexander C. Karp, co-founder and chief executive officer of Palantir Technologies Inc. “Jacobs is one of the world’s most innovative leaders in the field, and one that we believe will set the standard when combining software and industrial engineering in the sector moving forward.”

Based on the success of this pilot program, Jacobs and Palantir Technologies Inc. have entered into an agreement to expand and commercialize this innovative solution with the automation and deployment to more than 30 water and wastewater treatment plants across the U.S. that Jacobs already manages, and many more with our global consulting engineering clients.

Foundry is an operating system designed to break down silos between disparate data systems, creating a central operating system for an organization’s data, leading to faster data-driven decision making across the enterprise. The derived analytics and insights have helped increase plant performance, reduce lifecycle costs and secure plants from cyber threats by bringing data points together in a single platform – while supporting regulatory compliance and realization of ESG goals.

Designed to scale with increasing complexity, the system is ideally suited to provide a digital backbone of key workflows for the complex domain of wastewater treatment. Its multi-layered security and advanced data management protocols will help defend these critical utilities against cyber-terrorism and other threats, while pursuing the value of connectivity in data.

The solutions offered through the Jacobs and Palantir partnership are poised to respond to clients’ data and cyber challenges. Looking ahead, the partnership plans to expand and commercialize these innovative solutions within the U.S. and globally and are planning other technical and programmatic initiatives to serve U.S. federal government customers.