Rackspace makes forward deployed engineering central to its AI pitch, from Palantir rollouts to a proposed Together AI offering

Rackspace used its third-quarter 2026 earnings call on November 10 to position forward deployed engineering as a core part of how it sells enterprise AI. CEO Gajen Kandiah said the FDEs deploying Palantir are working inside many of the enterprise environments Rackspace already runs, so the company is extending an existing managed-services business rather than starting a new one.

On the Palantir partnership, Rackspace said it has signed seven contracts since its previous call, with five in active deployment and two in production. One example was a global specialty chemical company that hired Rackspace specifically for its forward deployed engineering expertise, starting with a focused bootcamp to find use cases and a path to production. Rackspace also said it has more than doubled its Palantir certifications since July to over 800, and that Palantir now owns about 2% of its common stock.

Separately, Rackspace announced a definitive agreement to run dedicated NVIDIA GB300 infrastructure for Together AI, with an anticipated total contract value of $380 million over several years, plus a non-binding letter of intent for a joint go-to-market in which Together AI would supply inference and Rackspace would supply infrastructure, platforms and forward deployed engineering. Rackspace's own FDE page describes its engineers as building AI solutions with customers on platforms including Palantir and Uniphore and staying accountable for them after go-live.

For FDEs, this is another sign that managed-services and infrastructure companies, not just AI labs and software vendors, are building FDE benches, and that Palantir certification is becoming a practical credential for that work. Rackspace did not disclose how many FDEs it employs.