Meta (META) is moving beyond social media platforms and AR headsets and into the military-industrial complex. The company on Thursday announced it’s teaming up with Palmer Luckey’s Anduril (ANIN.PVT) to produce extended reality products for soldiers.
The devices, Anduril said in a statement, will provide “enhanced perception and enable intuitive control of autonomous platforms on the battlefield.”
Luckey founded Anduril in 2017 after he sold his VR headset company Oculus to Meta (then Facebook) in 2014 for $2.3 billion. The company primarily specializes in developing and deploying various forms of military drones.
“I am glad to be working with Meta once again,” Luckey said in a statement. “Of all the areas where dual-use technology can make a difference for America, this is the one I am most excited about. My mission has long been to turn warfighters into technomancers, and the products we are building with Meta do just that.”
Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg began making a push into military and defense products when he opened up the company’s Llama AI models for use by the government and contractors working on national defense projects.
According to the companies, the new system will include an AR/VR interface that works with Anduril’s Lattice analytics platform to feed soldiers information about the world around them.
“The world is entering a new era of computing that will give people access to limitless intelligence and extend their senses and perception in ways that have never been possible before,” Meta CTO Andrew Bosworth said. “Our national security benefits enormously from American industry bringing these technologies to life.”
Meta isn’t the first Big Tech company to enter the military space. Amazon (AMZN), Google (GOOG, GOOGL), and Microsoft (MSFT) provide cloud services to the US military. Microsoft also turned over work on Army’s own AR/VR system to Anduril in February. Microsoft will also power the company’s cloud services related to “IVAS and Anduril AI technologies.”
Email Daniel Howley at dhowley@yahoofinance.com. Follow him on X/Twitter at @DanielHowley.
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