Big-data analytics company Palantir Technologies Inc. delivered solid results that surpassed analysts’ expectations and offered bullish guidance for the current quarter, citing artificial intelligence as its most important growth driver.

In its third-quarter financial statement, Palantir reported earnings before certain costs such as stock compensation of 21 cents per share on revenue of $1.18 billion, up by an impressive 63% from a year earlier. The results were better than expected, with Wall Street forecasting earnings of just 17 cents per share on sales of $1.09 billion.

It’s the second quarter in a row that has seen the company exceed $1 billion in sales, and it helped drive a substantial gain in its bottom line. Net income reaching $475.6 million, up from just $143.5 million in the year-ago period.

Palantir, which sells comprehensive, AI-infused analytics tools to governments and enterprises, also offered an encouraging forecast. It said it expects total sales of $1.33 billion in the current quarter, well ahead of the Street’s target of $1.19 billion.

The optimistic outlook seemed to dispel fears that some investors may have about how the ongoing U.S. government shutdown – now entering its second month – might affect the company’s fortunes. It obtains a good portion of its overall revenue from its U.S. government business, which generated $486 million in the last quarter, up 52% from a year ago. But some are worried that the shutdown could threaten key contracts there.

Sales to the government, especially military agencies, have become one of the main drivers of Palantir’s rapid ascent over the last couple of years. The company has established numerous contracts with U.S. military and other government contractors, most recently securing a $10 billion contract with the U.S. Army itself. However, the company has also faced some criticism about how its software is being used by some agencies, especially U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

Palantir isn’t totally reliant on the U.S. government, though. It also has a fast-growing commercial business that saw revenue more than double in the quarter, to $397 billion. Its total contract value for U.S. commercial deals ended the quarter at $1.31 billion, up more than four times what it was one year earlier. In recent weeks, Palantir has strengthened its commercial business by agreeing partnerships with Snowflake Inc., Nvidia Corp. and Lumen Technologies Inc.

Looking at the full year, Palantir said it’s targeting total sales of $4.4 billion, ahead of the analysts’ forecast of $4.17 billion. The company also raised its outlook for free cash flow to between $1.9 billion and $2.1 billion.

Despite the impressive results and optimistic guidance, Palantir’s stock slipped almost 2% in extended trading after initially making slight gains. The stock had earlier risen more than 3% in the regular trading session. Still, it has been one of the most impressive this year, and is still up more than 133% in the year to date, increasing its market capitalization to more than $422 billion, making it one of the most valuable software firms in the world.

Palantir Chief Executive Alex Karp (pictured), in a typically bombastic statement, told analysts on a conference call that the results were not just extraordinary. “These are arguably the best results that any software company has ever delivered,” he insisted. “And that’s not hyperbolic.”

Some analysts have raised concerns that Palantir’s stock might be overheating, as it trades at an extreme multiple relative to other technology firms that generate far more revenue. However, Karp addressed these concerns in a letter to shareholders that was issued alongside the latest results, saying that the company’s dramatic rise has “confounded most financial analysts and the chattering class, whose frames of reference did not quite anticipate a company of this size and scale growing at such a ferocious and unrelenting rate.”

He added that the company’s “detractors” have been left to wallow in a “kind of deranged and self-destructive befuddlement,” while the reality is that Palantir has enabled retail investors to achieve rates of return that were previously only accessible to some of the most successful venture capitalists. “We have done so through authentic and substantive growth,” he insisted.

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