Palantir Jumps on Joint Venture in the Semiconductor Industry By Investing.com

By Dhirendra Tripathi

Investing.com – Palantir stock (NYSE:) rose 5% Tuesday as the company sealed a joint venture with Germany’s Merck KGaA to optimize data mining for servicing the semiconductor industry.

This Merck, based in Darmstadt, uses the name EMD Electronics for its North American electronics business to avoid confusion with the unaffiliated pharmaceutical company of a similar name. The joint venture, Athinia, will be housed within another Merck KGaA subsidiary called EMD Digital that is separate from its electronics business, Reuters said.

Merck supplies chemicals that go into chip-making. The Athinia platform will use artificial intelligence and big data to solve challenges such as chip shortages, improve quality and supply chain transparency, and time to market, a Merck release said.

Athinia will bring semiconductor manufacturers and materials suppliers together to share, aggregate, and analyze data, a tough task in an industry with firms unwilling to share their trade secrets. The platform will also enable industry players to understand on a deeper level the interaction between materials and processes at semiconductor fabrication plants, the release said.

The joint venture comes amid a surge in demand for Cloud services, computers and electronic gadgets for a connected lifestyle, all of which have chips servicing them. Cars are also now a product of technology, adding to the unprecedented demand for chips.