AI Spending Surge Drives Palantir, DigitalOcean Gains

Enterprise technology providers from Palantir to Lumen are riding an new wave of artificial intelligence (AI) adoption. Multiple firms report dramatic revenue growth and expanded AI offerings in their latest earnings, ranging from Palantir’s 30% revenue jump to Helport AI’s 132% surge, as businesses rush to build AI infrastructure and deploy AI-powered tools across their operations.

Data analytics company Palantir Technologies reported that its third-quarter revenue rose 30% year over year (YoY) as demand for AI tools fueled strong growth in its commercial business.

The Denver-based company on Monday (Nov. 4) posted revenue of $726 million, compared with $558 million a year earlier. U.S. commercial revenue, a key metric watched by analysts, jumped 54% YoY to $179 million. The company reported GAAP earnings of 6 cents per share, up from 3 cents in the year-ago period.

“We absolutely eviscerated this quarter, driven by unrelenting AI demand that won’t slow down,” CEO Alexander Karp said in a news release. “This is a U.S.-driven AI revolution that has taken full hold.”

The company added new customers rapidly, with the total customer count rising 39% from a year earlier. During the quarter, Palantir closed 104 deals worth over $1 million. Adjusted free cash flow reached $435 million, representing a 60% margin.

The company raised its full-year outlook, expecting revenue between $2.805 billion and $2.809 billion. It also projected U.S. commercial revenue growth of at least 50% for the year. Palantir’s U.S. government revenue grew 40% to $320 million.

Technology companies are turning to Lumen Technologies to construct critical AI infrastructure, marking a potential turning point for the telecommunications provider amid its ongoing transformation efforts.

The Denver-based company reported Tuesday (Nov. 5) that leading tech firms are selecting Lumen’s network capabilities to support the rapidly expanding AI economy, though specific customers weren’t named. The push comes as enterprises increasingly recognize the vital link between AI deployment and network architecture.

“The largest technology companies in the world are choosing Lumen to help build the backbone for the AI economy. What’s more, enterprises are recognizing that every AI strategy needs a network strategy, and they’re coming to Lumen for help,” Kate Johnson, Lumen’s president and CEO, said in a news release.

Despite the AI momentum, Lumen posted a third-quarter loss of $148 million, wider than its $78 million loss a year earlier. The company has been working to reshape its business while managing long-term debt of $18.142 billion.

Cloud provider DigitalOcean Holdings is ramping up its AI offerings, announcing the availability of Nvidia H100 GPU instances and launching an early version of its generative AI platform alongside strong third-quarter results.

The New York-based company reported that revenue rose 12% YoY to $198 million, while net income jumped 72% to $33 million YoY.

“We continued to accelerate innovation, releasing 42 new product features across our core Cloud and AI platforms in Q3, that directly meet the needs of our larger customers,” CEO Paddy Srinivasan said in a Monday news release. “We made solid progress towards our objective of democratizing access to AI infrastructure.”

On Oct. 1, the company made its high-performance GPU computing services widely available to customers. Through its control panel and application programming interface, users can access Nvidia’s H100 Tensor Core GPUs in single and eight-GPU configurations.

The AI push comes as DigitalOcean aims to position itself as a software-centric AI platform for growing digital companies. The firm raised its full-year revenue guidance to between $775 million and $777 million.

Helport AI posted a 132% jump in annual revenue on Friday (Nov. 1), underscoring the growing enterprise adoption of AI tools as businesses seek to boost sales efficiency and cut costs.

The newly public company, which provides AI-powered coaching software for sales and customer service teams, reported revenue of $29.6 million for fiscal year 2024, up from $12.7 million a year earlier. Net income rose 53% to $7.4 million, driven by an average monthly subscribed seats increase from 2,192 to 5,475.

Singapore- and San Diego-based Helport, which began trading on Nasdaq in August under the ticker HPAI following its merger with Tristar Acquisition I Corp., has expanded its customer base to over 30,000 active users globally.

“We see major breakthroughs with developing partnerships such as Google and eWorld Enterprise Solutions in supporting U.S. government sectors,” Chief Executive Guanghai Li said in a news release. The company’s listing on Google Cloud Marketplace, announced this week, aims to “enhance our global reach and strengthen our technology and data security credibility.”

Helport is developing what it calls the Helport AI Developer Ecosystem, inspired by Nvidia’s CUDA platform, to enable third-party developers to create applications using its AI engine.

The post AI Spending Surge Drives Palantir, DigitalOcean Gains appeared first on PYMNTS.com.