영국 국민보건서비스(NHS)와 미국 소프트웨어 기업 팔란티어 간 4억 달러 규모 계약의 조기 종료 여부를 두고 영국 내 논쟁이 뜨겁다. 그레이터맨체스터 보건당국은 자체 개발 플랫폼이 기능적으로 우월하고 신뢰도 높다며 팔란티어의 '연합 데이터 플랫폼(FDP)' 도입을 거듭 거부하고 있다. 트럼프 행정부와 마찰을 빚는 유럽 국가들도 미국 기술 의존도를 줄이기 위해 팔란티어와의 관계를 재검토 중이다.
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영국 정부는 국민보건서비스(NHS)와 미국 소프트웨어 기업 팔란티어 사이의 4억 달러 이상에 달하는 계약을 해지할지 여부를 결정하는 데 6개월의 시간이 주어졌다. NHS의 한 지역이 이미 팔란티어 없이 운영되고 있다면, 정치인들은 나머지 지역도 왜 그렇게 할 수 없는지 묻고 있다.
2023년 영국은 팔란티어에 전국에서 생성되는 얽힌 건강 데이터를 수집·정리할 수 있는 '연합 데이터 플랫폼(Federated Data Platform, FDP)' 개발을 의뢰했다. 팔란티어와 NHS에 따르면 새 시스템은 이미 대기 시간과 입원 기간을 단축하고 수술실 활용도를 극대화하고 있다.
그러나 최근 팔란티어 기술이 전쟁 무대와 미국 행정부의 이민자 단속에 배치되면서 NHS와의 계약은 영국 내 논쟁의 쟁점이 되어 시위, 청원, 의회 조사, 그리고 NHS 직원들의 반발로 이어졌다. 트럼프 행정부와 갈등을 심화하고 있는 다른 유럽 국가들도 미국산 기술에 대한 의존도를 최소화하기 위해 팔란티어와의 관계를 재검토하고 있다.
영국 그레이터맨체스터 지역 보건위원회는 팔란티어의 FDP 도입을 거듭 거부하며 지난 10년 가까이 개발해온 자체 플랫폼을 고수하기로 했다. 이 위원회는 팔란티어가 필요 없으며, 자체 플랫폼이 기능적으로 우월하고 대중의 신뢰를 더 받는다고 주장한다.
NHS 그레이터맨체스터의 최고 데이터·분석 책임자인 맷 헤네시는 WIRED에 "기술적으로 우수한 플랫폼이라도 임상의, 데이터 관리자, 환자 또는 대중이 신뢰하지 않으면 가치를 실현하기 어렵다"며 "FDP를 완전히 도입한다면 그것은 퇴보적인 조치가 될 것"이라고 말했다. 팔란티어와 다른 FDP 지지자들이 반박하는 이 주장은 정부가 내년 2월 계약을 2031년까지 유지하는 대신 조기 종료할 기회를 잡아야 하는지에 대한 전국적 논쟁에 불을 지폈다.
수십 년 동안 NHS 직원들은 환자를 추적하기 위해 디지털 시스템, 스프레드시트, 종이, 화이트보드를 혼합해 사용해왔다. 환자가 한 의료 환경에서 다른 환경으로 이동할 때 치료 기록이 뒤에 남겨져 때때로 치명적인 결과를 초래하기도 했다. 다양한 의료 제공자들이 효과적으로 정보를 공유할 방법이 없어 NHS 관리자들은 불완전하게 짜집기된 데이터에 기반해 자금 및 자원 배분 결정을 내려야 했다.
팔란티어의 FDP는 이 모든 것을 바꾸는 것을 목표로 한다. NHS는 2024년 초 FDP 배포를 시작했다. 이 플랫폼은 치료 부족을 파악하는 데 도움을 주는 전국 단위 건강 데이터 풀과, 각 지역이 자체 요구에 맞는 분석과 도구(예: 대기자 명단 관리나 퇴원 계획)를 개발하는 데 사용할 수 있는 지역 데이터베이스들로 구성된다. 다양한 구성 요소들이 모두 동일한 기반 기술 구조를 공유하므로, 이론상 한 지역에서 개발된 도구가 다른 지역에서도 손쉽게 채택될 수 있다.
"옮겨다 쓸 수 있죠. 그것이 FDP의 진정한 힘입니다"라고 NHS 잉글랜드의 데이터 엔지니어링 부국장으로 전국 단위 FDP 배포를 총괄했던 독립 IT 컨설턴트 톰 바틀릿은 말한다. "또 다른 장점은 인공지능이 작동할 수 있는 기반을 제공한다는 것입니다."
방대한 NHS 조직 내에서 FDP에 접근할 수 있는 조직은 두 종류이다. 병원과 지역 의료를 운영하는 트러스트(trust), 그리고 지역 차원에서 의료 서비스를 계획하고 위탁하는 통합의료위원회(ICB)다. 두 조직 모두 다른 목적으로 데이터를 사용하지만 환자 치료를 개선한다는 궁극적 목표는 공유한다. NHS 수치에 따르면 약 200개 트러스트 중 139곳이 현재 팔란티어 기술을 '가동 중'이며, 잉글랜드의 36개 ICB 중 35곳이 이 시스템을 활발히 사용하고 있다. 보건부 대변인은 "매달 수천 명의 환자가 FDP의 혜택을 받고 있는 것이 분명하다"고 말했다.
Comment Loader Save Story Save this story Comment Loader Save Story Save this story The UK government has six months to decide whether to terminate a deal worth more than $400 million between the country’s National Health Service and American software company Palantir . If one part of the NHS is already doing without Palantir, politicians are asking , why can’t the rest of the country? In 2023, the UK commissioned Palantir to develop a “ federated data platform ” (FDP) that could ingest and organize the tangle of health data produced across the country. According to Palantir and the NHS, the new system is already cutting wait times and the length of hospital stays, and maximizing the use of operating theatres. But lately, as Palantir technology is deployed in theatres of war and the US administration’s immigration crackdown , its deal with the NHS has become a flashpoint in the UK, drawing protests , petitions , parliamentary inquiries , and a reported rebellion among NHS workers. Other European nations, increasingly at loggerheads with the Trump administration, are also reevaluating their relationships with Palantir in a bid to minimize their dependence on US-made technology . The health care board for one part of England, Greater Manchester, has repeatedly declined to adopt Palantir’s FDP, choosing to stick with a home-spun platform developed over the best part of a decade. The board claims it doesn’t need Palantir, that its own platform is functionally superior and more trusted by the public. “[Even] a technically strong platform will struggle to realize value if clinicians, data controllers, patients or the public do not trust it,” Matt Hennessey, chief data and analytics officer at NHS Greater Manchester, tells WIRED. “If we were to fully adopt the FDP … it would be a retrograde step.” That claim—disputed by Palantir and other FDP advocates—has fed into a national debate over whether the government should seize an opportunity next February to terminate the NHS contract early, instead of allowing it to run until 2031 . For decades , NHS workers have used a combination of digital systems, spreadsheets, paper, and whiteboards to keep track of patients. Sometimes, when a patient moves from one care setting to another, their treatment records are left behind with occasionally deadly consequences . Without a way for different types of care providers to share information effectively, NHS administrators have had to base funding and resource allocation decisions on an incomplete patchwork of data. Palantir’s FDP is meant to change all that. The NHS began to roll out the FDP in early 2024. The platform consists of a national pool of health data meant to help identify care deficiencies, and a bunch of local databases that individual regions can use to perform analyses and develop tools specific to their needs—say, waitlist management or discharge planning. The various components all share the same underlying technology scaffolding, in theory making it possible for tools developed in one corner of the country to be readily adopted in another. “You can lift and shift. That’s the real power of the FDP,” says Tom Bartlett, an independent IT consultant who previously oversaw the national-level FDP rollout as deputy director of data engineering at NHS England. “The other advantage is that you’ve got a surface for artificial intelligence to work across.” Within the sprawling NHS, two types of organizations can access the FDP: trusts that run hospitals and local care, and integrated care boards (ICBs), responsible for planning and commissioning health care services at a regional level. Both use data for different purposes, but share the ultimate goal of improving patient care. NHS figures show 139 of roughly 200 trusts currently “live” with Palantir’s technology, while 35 of England’s 36 ICBs are actively using the system. “It is clear that thousands more patients are benefitting from the FDP every month,” a spokesperson for the Department of Health and Social Care tells WIRED. But trusts in different pockets of England have resisted the FDP , including in Greater Manchester, where sources claim they are using it for limited purposes only. “They’re not going all in,” claims Andy Haywood, chief digital and data officer at research institute Health Innovation Manchester. “On the spreadsheet they go down as using it, but not in the sense of putting all their data in it.” (Palantir claims that trusts in Greater Manchester are using the FDP extensively.) Greater Manchester—the birthplace of the NHS in the industrial north of England—is also the sole region whose care board has repeatedly and categorically refused to adopt Palantir’s platform. Instead, Greater Manchester ICB, which covers a population of around 3 million, has stuck with its homegrown Analytics and Data Science Platform (ADSP). At a meeting in May 2025, despite pressure from the national unit of the NHS to adopt Palantir’s technology, the board concluded that its “local capability exceeds anything the FDP currently offers” and some of its functionalities are “two–three years” ahead. The board’s resolve has only hardened since. The ADSP is fed with primary care data that is not available on Palantir’s platform, and because the system was developed in-house, it can supposedly be reconfigured more easily. “Because the ADSP is a collection of technologies, if we found that our data visualization software had become less than best in class, we could swap it out,” Hennessey tells WIRED. The ADSP also benefits from a deep public trust in the platform fostered over multiple years, Hennessey claims, meaning people are more likely to volunteer the sensitive health data required for this kind of platform to function. Palantir says there is scant independent evidence to suggest the ADSP has contributed directly to improving patient care or saving costs—and that its own platform is widely trusted. “Thousands of doctors, nurses, and other NHS staff use the [FDP], with many on the record as to its benefits,” Stephen Childs, head of health care partnerships at Palantir UK, tells WIRED. But the claim that Greater Manchester has developed a superior system in-house has nonetheless colored an ongoing debate over whether the UK government should break off Palantir’s contract next February. In June, a bipartisan group of UK politicians published a report warning that the country’s reliance on Palantir represents an “unacceptable point of weakness,” handing a single foreign vendor overwhelming leverage. The report argued for the government to activate the break clause and seek out domestic alternatives. The following month, a separate parliamentary committee made similar arguments , drawing from testimony provided by Hennessey on the situation in Greater Manchester. “[Palantir] is evidently not the only show in town,” wrote MP Layla Moran, chair of the committee. But proponents of the FDP argue that, in reality, there is no viable alternative to Palantir, able to thread together data from across the country and the many sub-components of the NHS—from trusts to ICBs to national bodies. They argue MPs’ calls to break the Palantir contract are based on a narrow assessment of the value the FDP can provide to care boards, compared to Greater Manchester’s platform, and ignore its potential benefits in hospitals and other settings where treatment is administered. “The claim that the ADSP achieves superior results really doesn’t make sense … [The FDP] does completely different things,” says Bartlett. “To frame the use case as analytics is a complete misrepresentation of the whole goal of the product.” (Hennessey says that Greater Manchester ICB has only ever said its technology is superior to Palantir’s in a care board setting, not across the NHS.) Bartlett argues that the level of scrutiny directed at the Palantir deal compared to other expensive NHS projects signals political objections are interfering with attempts to assess the