JA Full Open - 19AQMM24F7143 Redact.pdf

JUSTIFICATION AND APPROVAL (J&A)

FOR OTHER THAN FULL AND OPEN COMPETITION

PURSUANT TO FAR SUBPART 6.3

1. Identification of the agency and the contracting activity:

This is a justification for other than full and open competition for an acquisition being conducted by the Department of State through Office of Acquisition Management (AQM) on behalf of the Executive Secretariat (S/ES) for the Secretary/DOS Operations Center (S/ES-O).

2. Nature and/or description of the action being approved.

The proposed acquisition is to issue a new BPA Call under BPA Contract # 19AQMM22A0249 - Enterprise Data Management Platform. The new BPA Call estimated dollar value is with a period of performance of three (3) months. This pilot program will be used for S/ES Operations Center to monitor world events that may impact USG interests overseas and provide a central repository that can be queried. The proposed acquisition is to issue firm-fixed price award to:

Company: Palantir USG Inc.

Address: 1200 17th Street, Floor 15

Denver, CO 80202

UEI: HNN4F9JZWDY8

POCs: Brian Zavertnik; bzavertnik@palantir.com

3. A description of the supplies or services required to meet the Agency’s needs

(including estimated value).

The Operations Center (S/ES-O) is the Secretary's and the Department's communications and crisis management center. The Operations Center (Ops) works 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, 365 days a year to monitor world events, prepare briefings for the Secretary and other Department principals, and facilitate communication and coordination between the Department, interagency, and the rest of the world. Ops also coordinates the Department's response to crises and supports task forces and other crisis-related activities.

Ops is the nerve center of information distribution throughout the Department of State and the interagency in times of crisis. A large part of Ops duties is ensuring that the Secretary of State and the U.S. government has the latest information they need to shape U.S. foreign policy at any given time. To perform its core mission as effectively and efficiently as possible, the Ops Center must keep pace with evolving technology to leverage the best data and information management practices and tools. In line with the Department’s overall IT modernization efforts, the Ops Center seeks to strengthen its ability to collect, track, analyze, and disseminate information across the Department and interagency via multiple modalities in a collaborative work environment.

The overview of the services to be acquired through this BPA Call include:

• Platform Setup and Security Configuration

• Data Integrations and Transformations

• Analytics

• Operational Workflows

The requirement is to provide a software as a service platform that is FEDRAMP-compliant with an existing ATO with Department of State. The estimated value for this 3-month period of performance is

Ops needs the ability to connect directly to the interagency to securely share and receive live data on both unclassified and classified information systems. Palantir is currently used by several federal agencies including DoD, of whom Ops liaises with frequently during a crisis. A major part of the Ops mission of getting the ‘right information to the right people at the right time’ is to disseminate crucial information to key decision makers to shape U.S. foreign policy and response.

4. An identification of the statutory authority permitting other than full and open competition. This acquisition is conducted under the authority of 41 U.S.C. 3304, as implemented by FAR 6.3 and substantiated by the following:

☒ FAR 6.302-1 – Only one responsible source and no other supplies or services will satisfy agency requirements.

5. A demonstration that the proposed contractor’s unique qualifications or the nature of the action require use of the authority cited.

The vendor is uniquely qualified to perform the services for the following reasons:

• Palantir has appropriately supported their product since 2004, and its use is in the USG national security space is considerable. Palantir is one of five offerings authorized for Mission Critical National Security Systems (IL5) by the U.S.

Department of Defense. In addition, Palantir’s Foundry (SaaS) is used by large private such as

• Palantir is the only company currently authorized by IRM to operate Foundry, a proprietary software which is not available for resale by other vendors. In addition, it is the only company that can immediately provide a Department of

State configured and customizable crisis management platform that deploys software that is scalable and allows for prompt data exchange across the

Department of State and key interagency partners such as the Department of

Defense.

• Palantir’s SaaS (Foundry) can provide a continuous data streaming service that

Department of State personnel immediately utilize to create a common operating picture for senior principals and the interagency as it pertains to crisis response. Without Palantir’s software services, the Operations Center would not be able to feasibly provide key crisis management data to our Department of Defense or Intelligence Community (IC) or to deploy Generative Artificial

Intelligence (e.g., Large Language Models) and Machine Learning (e.g., Classification Models) tools.

6. A description of efforts to ensure that offers are solicited from as many potential sources as is practicable, including whether a notice was or will be publicized as required by FAR Subpart 5.2 and, if not, which exception under FAR 5.202 applies.

Palantir is the only company that can provide access and support to the proprietary SaaS known as Foundry. S/ES-ExecTech has solicited proposals from other private contractors (e.g., Improvix) and corporations (e.g., Microsoft) and have determined that no other entities could meet the requirements outlined in the SOW in a quicker timeline. Given the immediacy of the need to share curated data to other USG organizations that monitor and report on major crisis as they occur, S/ES-ExecTech believes there are no further needs to solicit other companies for this work, especially when Palantir already has a valid Conditional Authority to Operate (C-ATO) granted by

IRM to offer maintenance and support services for this platform.

7. A determination by the Contracting Officer that the anticipated cost to the Government will be fair and reasonable.

The Contracting Office determines that the anticipated price(s) will be fair and reasonable based on past procurement history and market research. By signing the justification, the Contracting Officer makes a determination that the cost/price to the Government are expected to be fair and reasonable.

8. A description of the market research conducted (see part 10) and the results or a statement of the reason market research was not conducted.

Since November of 2022 the Operations Center has engaged TPCs to conduct in-house development of a crisis information platform called the Ops Response Interagency Online Network (ORION). The platform leverages existing enterprise software (e.g., Office365) and custom JaveScript. These in-house efforts followed a previous platform acquisition effort with a private provider known as Juvare. Their WebEOC product was not able to meet the needs of the SOW presented and as a result the contract was prematurely terminated. The Operations Center has examined additional proposals to meet the needs described in section 4.2 from Improvix Technologies, Microsoft, and from Palantir.

During 2023, S/ES conducted internal market research to identify potential sources for the services described above. Our meetings with the Office of the CIO, the Bureau of Information Resource Management and the Office of the Chief Data Officer revealed services that would provide the full range of engineering and infrastructure development capabilities to upgrade ORION in a meaningful way were still in development and not ready for our use. We did, however, find the Palantir BPA in use by the MED Bureau, and after consultations with their IT leadership discovered the scope of that BPA aligned to our crisis management needs and allowed for tight integration of crisis data among other partner bureaus already using, or were interested in using the BPA to procure services.

9. Any other facts supporting the use of other than full and open competition.

Palantir is currently used by other Department Bureaus and several federal agencies including DoD, of whom Ops liaises with frequently during a crisis. The Operations Center requires the ability to share and receive information from these entities and others on the same or similar platforms.

10. A listing of the sources, if any, that expressed, in writing, an interest in the acquisition.

Palantir.

11. A statement of the actions, if any, the agency may take to remove or overcome any barriers to competition before any subsequent acquisition for the supplies or services required.

N/A.