Meta and Anduril to Build XR Headsets for U.S. Military Use
In a significant development for the defence technology sector, Anduril Industries and Meta have confirmed a new collaboration aimed at delivering extended reality (XR) solutions for the U.S. military. The announcement, made via Anduril’s official blog, marks a noteworthy moment in the career of Anduril co-founder Palmer Luckey, symbolising a professional reunion with Meta, the company formerly known as Facebook, which had once dismissed him.
The partnership forms part of the U.S. Army’s Soldier Borne Mission Command (SBMC) Next programme. Previously referred to as the Integrated Visual Augmentation System (IVAS), Next, the initiative represents a multi-billion-dollar effort to equip soldiers with cutting-edge mixed reality devices. The IVAS contract, originally granted to Microsoft in 2018 with a budget totalling $22 billion, had encountered numerous challenges over the years. As a result, the Army opted to reassign the programme’s management in early 2024, transferring operational control from Microsoft to Anduril. Microsoft, however, remains the project’s cloud services provider.
This shift in control effectively positioned Anduril as the primary channel for companies like Meta seeking to break into the lucrative defence XR space. Meta, known for its AR/VR innovations through Reality Labs, is contributing both its hardware and software expertise to the collaboration. The devices will reportedly incorporate Meta’s proprietary Llama artificial intelligence model and will integrate with Anduril’s battlefield command system, Lattice. The goal is to enhance soldiers’ situational awareness by equipping them with real-time, heads-up intelligence on the battlefield.
The XR headset ecosystem being developed under this partnership is reportedly called “EagleEye”. According to an Anduril representative, this name has historical roots in the company’s founding phase. It was originally proposed as the title of a conceptual headset during Anduril’s early pitch deck presentations. At the time, investors had advised Luckey and his team to focus on software development first, rather than diving into hardware production.
The decision to now proceed with hardware represents a full-circle moment for Luckey, who was dismissed from Facebook in 2017. That departure followed controversies surrounding his political affiliations during the 2016 U.S. presidential election. Luckey had initially risen to prominence as the founder of Oculus VR, a company acquired by Facebook in 2014 for approximately $2 billion. His exit from Facebook was a widely publicised incident in the tech community.
In 2017, shortly after leaving Facebook, Luckey established Anduril alongside Brian Schimpf, Matt Grimm, and Trae Stephens. The company has since become a prominent player in defence technology, known for combining artificial intelligence with autonomous systems to develop solutions for national security.
The revived collaboration with Meta now sees Luckey leveraging both legacy assets and newly developed technologies. The EagleEye system will reportedly draw on innovations from all phases of his career — including products conceived prior to Oculus’ acquisition, those developed during his tenure at Meta, and advancements made at Anduril since its founding.
According to sources familiar with the project, the partnership is structured to ensure interoperability and scalability, with a long-term vision of supplying the military with multiple XR device options. This diversified supplier model is intended to prevent dependency on a single contractor while promoting innovation across platforms.
Further underscoring the renewed relationship between Luckey and his former employer, Anduril has also launched a Facebook page as part of its broader digital presence strategy.
The collaboration between Meta and Anduril represents not just a technical convergence but a notable narrative of reconciliation and strategic alignment in the rapidly evolving field of defence-related extended reality.
