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- Palantir stock is headed to $25 a share as the company builds an AI "fortress," Wedbush said.
- That would be a 54% jump in price from Thursday's closing level.
- The company will be a major player in the AI boom in the next decade, the firm said.
Palantir stock is set to pop in the next year as the tech firm erects an artificial intelligence "fortress" that will help it become one of the biggest players in the AI race in the coming decade, Wedbush Securities analysts wrote on Friday.
According to Wedbush's Dan Ives, Palantir is headed to $25 a share in the next 12 months. That represents a surge of 54% from Thursday's closing price of $16.15. Shares were up 5.7% at $17.07 early Friday.
The data software firm, which has been funded in part by the CIA's In-Q-Tel venture capital arm, is the "Messi" of AI, Ives said, referring to Argentine soccer superstar Lionel Messi.
"As we begin the 4th Industrial Revolution, Palantir is engaging in the widespread trend of various industries leveraging recent generative AI innovations to streamline operations and improve expense profiles," the Wedbush analysts wrote.
Given Palantir's wide roster of partners in both the public and private spheres, Wedbush sees the next six to 12 months as a period of significant expansion for the company as it serves the growing demand for enterprise-scale large language AI models.
"This is early innings on a sum-of-the-parts AI story just on the cusp on monetizing this massive green field AI opportunity," it predicted.
Palantir CEO Alex Karp has been a vocal proponent of the rapid development of AI even in the face of risks associated with the technology.
In an op-ed for the New York Times this week, he wrote that AI will shape political developments in this century in the same way that nuclear weapons drove geopolitics in the last century. He cautioned that there are risks, but they should not deter the continued advancement of AI.
"If these technologies are to exist alongside us over the long term, it will also be essential to rapidly construct systems that allow more seamless collaboration between human operators and their algorithmic counterparts, to ensure that the machine remains subordinate to its creator," he wrote. "We must not, however, shy away from building sharp tools for fear they may be turned against us."