Palmer Luckey’s Anduril will take over the US Army contract for Microsoft’s Mixed Reality Goggles. The 10-year contract worth $22 billion is plagued by development problems. Original vision.
Palmer Luckey scored a big personal victory. His defense startup Anduril is set to take over a $22 billion contract to make high-tech goggles for the US military.
The companies announced the transition on Tuesday, saying Anduril will spearhead a “timeline for production monitoring, future hardware and software development and delivery” integrated visual augmentation systems program.
IVAS aims to give soldiers a headset that uses expanded visual reality to provide information about the battlefield in real time. One of its most important features is to allow the wearer to quickly and clearly identify the drone.
For Lucky, the contract transition is a fork for him. In his blog Tuesday, he wrote that the announcement was “deeply personal.”
“Everything I’ve done in my career was building Oculus from camper trailers, shipping VR to millions of consumers, lining snakes and running out of Silicon Valley, and Andrill gave people Bigtech Megacorp Matrix “To tackle the most important issues of our country by betting that we can tear them from and put them in – this moment,” he wrote.
The move has returned to Luckey’s original foray into the tech industry. He founded Oculus VR and sold it to Facebook in 2014 for $2 billion. After being kicked out of Facebook, he started Andrill in 2017, and his defense startup delved into drones, AI, and anti-electron warfare systems for the US military.
In September, Microsoft and Anduril said they were working together on the IVAS program, with Luckey’s company providing lattice software for their headsets.
Currently, the entire program is set up to be under Anduril’s control.
Lucky wrote in his blog that he was aware of the potential for combat in high-tech goggles as he was a teenager, and offering them to the US military was eight years ago on Andrill’s original pitch deck. It was partially.
However, he estimated Andrill’s size at the time was about a team of about 12 people, which hurt his chances of winning a contract.
“I believe our crazy pitch might have won this from the start, but as things stand, we don’t have the time like we are now,” writes Lucky.
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The US Army is having a hard time with IVAS
The extradition still needs to be approved by the US government. The US Army awarded Microsoft a 10-year contract in 2021, when the deal was valued at up to $22 billion.
The IVAS program has since faced a tough road in development and testing. Microsoft converted the Hololens 2 headset for military use, but soldiers criticized the device and complained of side effects such as software glitches and headaches, nausea and neck tension.
A US soldier wearing a prototype IVAS headset.
US military
Feedback led the US Army to delay the IVAS program in October 2021, and the system repeatedly recovered to the battlefield a few years later.
Within Microsoft, the entire Hololens project appeared to be sick. Business Insider’s Ashley Stewart reported that plans for a third version of the headset were scrapped in 2022, and that the company lost billions in its mixed reality program.
In October 2024, Microsoft confirmed its plans to halt production of the Hololens 2, reducing device support, and questioned the IVAS program. Microsoft’s movements were tracked by changes throughout the industry. The Technology Giants have retreated from developing mixed reality headsets and instead focused on AI racing.
After Microsoft’s decision, the U.S. Army in late January suggested that it would investigate the market for new candidates for the 10-year contract and publish requests for information related to the IVAS program.
With Anduril in the driver’s seat, it’s not immediately clear what hardware to use for the IVA. The joint statement with Microsoft did not mention the repealed Hololens 2.
Instead, the joint statement said that part of Andrill’s deal would be to make Microsoft’s Azure Cloud Service an “preferred hyperscale cloud” for IVA.
When Anduril took over the IVA, Luckey wrote that he projected confidence into his blog, hoping to “turn fighters into technomancers” through head-up displays.
“There are shots that prove that this long-standing dream is not a windmill,” he wrote.
Microsoft has confirmed with Business Insider that the agreement with Anduril has pending approval for DOD. Andrill did not respond to requests for comment sent by Business Insider outside of normal business hours.
