Remember when Meta was very, very careful to distance itself from defense? Oh, and also when Anduril founder Palmer Luckey was ousted from the company (then called Facebook) in 2017?
Well, times they have a-changed. Late last week, Anduril and Meta announced a strategic partnership to build extended reality (XR) products for the US military. In a release that included the above photo of Luckey and Meta founder Mark Zuckerberg grinning, the two companies said they’re teaming up to build “integrated XR products that provide warfighters with enhanced perception and enable intuitive control of autonomous platforms on the battlefield.”
The XR suite will integrate with Anduril’s Lattice command and control platform and build on the AR and VR capabilities both companies have been building for years.
Race to integrate: Anduril took over the US Army’s $22B Integrated Visual Augmentation System (IVAS) contract from Microsoft back in April. That’s the program the XR kit will be used for.
- Microsoft had some serious issues building IVAS for soldiers. Users reported headaches, nausea, and other discomforts while wearing the Microsoft-built headsets.
- Army leaders also worried that Microsoft’s system wasn’t, well, particularly effective or helpful.
Anduril was already working to integrate Lattice into Microsoft’s IVAS system when they took over. Now, according to the company, Lattice will be seamlessly integrated into XR headsets and kit, and “soldiers will gain intuitive access to Lattice’s analytical capabilities, a meaningful source of data for decision advantage.”
Under Anduril, the project is now called Soldier-Borne Mission Command (SBMC).
Virtual: As Meta and Anduril embark on a new partnership, it’s worth mentioning how Luckey ended up at Facebook back in 2017 in the first place. Luckey (the wunderkind) developed the Oculus VR headset when he was a teenager, then sold it to Facebook for $2.4B in 2014.
- Luckey was an early and vocal supporter of Donald Trump. Facebook never provided an official reason for his exit in 2017 but reporting suggests it was because of political donations and internal disagreements.
- Luckey founded Anduril that same year; he used a portion of the proceeds from Oculus to build up the defense giant.
This partnership, then, marks a pretty big win for Luckey and Anduril, and a symbolic return to his VR origins. It’s also massive expansion by Meta into military software and equipment.
“I am glad to be working with Meta once again,” Luckey said in a statement. “My mission has long been to turn warfighters into technomancers, and the products we are building with Meta do just that.”