Defence technology company Anduril Industries has entered into a collaborative agreement with Facebook owner Meta to develop and deploy a suite of integrated extended reality (XR) technologies aimed at enhancing the capabilities of US military personnel.
The XR products are aimed at improving situational awareness and facilitating seamless command of uncrewed systems by military personnel during combat operations.
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This initiative will leverage the companies’ extensive investments in hardware, software, and artificial intelligence over the past ten years.
It is financed entirely through private investment, ensuring no reliance on public funds.
The collaboration seeks to deliver cost-effective solutions to the US military by repurposing commercially developed high-performance technology components for defence applications, with the potential to generate significant cost savings for the military budget.
Anduril explains that the new XR tools will function in conjunction with its AI-driven command and control system, Lattice, which synthesises data from myriad sources to deliver instantaneous battlefield insights in real time.
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By GlobalDataThe collaboration will integrate role-specific augmented reality (AR) and virtual reality (VR) interfaces into their products, granting military personnel intuitive interaction with Lattice’s analytical tools. This integration is intended to enhance the way combatants perceive, process, and assimilate information on the battlefield.
By offering immersive technological solutions, the aim is to bolster the effectiveness of tactical decision-making in various combat situations.
Anduril founder Palmer Luckey said: “I am glad to be working with Meta once again. 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.”
For Meta, the partnership extends its Reality Labs ventures and promotes the use of its open-source AI models, such as Llama, for national security purposes by the US and allied nations.
The partners have already submitted a white paper as a team for SBMC Next, formerly IVAS Next.
Following the transition of the integrated visual augmentation system (IVAS) contract from Microsoft to Anduril, the companies have made strides in evolving IVAS into a soldier-borne mission command system.
Progress includes enhanced operational efficiency, expedited delivery schedules, reduced costs, and software updates that now take less than 18 hours instead of 180 days. Testing is currently underway for Lattice-integrated IVAS headsets.
Meta founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg said: “Meta has spent the last decade building AI and AR to enable the computing platform of the future. We’re proud to partner with Anduril to help bring these technologies to the American servicemembers that protect our interests at home and abroad.”
In November 2024, Meta made its open source Large Language Model Meta AI (Llama) model available to US government agencies working on defence and national security applications.
