BIG DATA PULSE
Friday, February 20, 2026
Market Intelligence for Big Data Professionals
🎯 Today's Big Data PulseUpdated 1h ago
What's happening: DHS awards Palantir up to $1B for AI and data analytics platforms
The U.S. Department of Homeland Security signed a five‑year blanket purchase agreement with Palantir Technologies valued at up to $1 billion. The contract lets agencies such as Customs and Border Protection, ICE, FEMA and CISA use Palantir’s Gotham and Foundry platforms via individual task orders, eliminating the need for separate competitive bids.
Also developing:
- •DPO plans $200M high‑performance computing data center in Wisconsin
- •Nvidia close to a $30B investment in OpenAI, Reuters reports
- •DBTA publishes latest big‑data news flashes
By the numbers: Caterpillar acquires RPMGlobal Holdings
💬 Top Big Data Social Posts
Tweet by @Teriradichel
This is an interesting thread. Everyone is suggesting tools to solve the problem. I’d start by asking more about the data and the questions the customer is trying to answer or problems they are trying to solve first before recommending tools. Can any of what they need be done deterministically? Can the problem be broken down into smaller pieces or batch jobs? Can the data be categorized in some way? What is the risk of prompt injection or malware in the data set? Then if there’s no way to reframe or rearchitecture, go for the tools, but align the tool with the problem.
by Teri Radichel•
Thread by @Sspdata
The semantic layer is like a restaurant menu: you know what you're ordering, but not how it's made. This analogy comes from Maxime Beauchemin and I think it's perfect. Users shouldn't need to understand your star schema to calculate revenue. They should just ask for revenue and trust the layer to translate. The menu hides the kitchen. That's the point. https://ssp.sh/brain/semantic-layer
by SSP Data•
