Meta to make AI-powered mixed-reality headsets for US military

The US military could soon get artificial intelligence-powered virtual (VR) and augmented reality (AR) gear made by Meta, after the social media giant joined forces with defence contractor Anduril to develop the devices.

The headsets will use Anduril’s AI-powered command and control system, the Lattice platform, to integrate data from thousands of sources and provide real-time battlefield intelligence, Anduril said on May 29.

It added that the headset will give soldiers “enhanced perception” and “intuitive control of autonomous platforms” while on missions. 

“This integration will transform how warfighters see, sense, and integrate battlefield information, providing immersive technology solutions that enhance tactical decision-making in combat scenarios,”  Anduril said.  

Funding for the project came from private capital, and the hope is to leverage components and technology originally built for commercial use and repurpose them for military applications.

Meta, formerly called Facebook after its flagship social media platform, went headfirst into launching a metaverse in October 2021 and has since spent $40 billion to develop VR and AR technology.

US tech giants deepen military ties 

Anduril co-founder Palmer Luckey, who also co-founded Oculus VR, a virtual reality company which Meta acquired in 2014, said in a May 29 X post that the partnership was the next step in his goal to turn US soldiers into “technomancers.” 

“We have been working together on a variety of things for a while now, but the first one to go public will be EagleEye, the system I hope will go on to become the next Soldier Borne Mission Command for the Army,” he said.

Tech giant Microsoft was initially awarded the contract in 2018 to develop AR headsets for the US military based on its AR headset HoloLens as part of the wider Soldier Borne Mission Command program.

However, in February, Microsoft said Anduril had taken the reins but that it would continue to be the cloud provider.

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Last November, Meta opened up its large language model Llama to the US military and defense contractors for national security purposes by changing its acceptable use policies. 

In the same month, AI firm Anthropic granted the US defense departments access to Claude 3 and 3.5 AI models to integrate into Palantir’s AI Platform, secured on Amazon Web Services.

Meanwhile, in August, intelligence firm Palantir announced a partnership with tech giant Microsoft to sell AI services and analytics to US defense and intelligence agencies. 

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