Palmer Luckey, the tech wunderkind who kickstarted the modern VR revolution with Oculus, has a knack for defying expectations. Standing in a sunlit room filled with lush greenery, he’s all smiles, arms crossed in a casual brown jacket over a floral shirt, cargo shorts, and slip-on shoes. Next to him is Mark Zuckerberg, dressed in his signature minimalist white tee and dark jeans, looking equally at ease. After years of rocky history, Meta and Anduril Industries, the defense-tech company Luckey founded after leaving Meta, are joining forces to create cutting-edge virtual reality (VR) and augmented reality (AR) systems for the U.S. military.
This partnership is a big deal, not just for the two companies but for the future of military technology. Together, they’re working on a suite of extended reality (XR) products designed to give American soldiers an edge on the battlefield. This includes headsets that can overlay real-time battlefield data, enhance a soldier’s vision and hearing, and even help them make split-second decisions under pressure. One of the first projects to come out of this collaboration is called EagleEye, a system that Luckey hopes will become the next Soldier Borne Mission Command for the Army.
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Luckey, who posted about the announcement today, couldn’t hide his excitement. “Anduril and Meta have teamed up to make the world’s best AR and VR systems for the United States Military,” he wrote. “Leveraging Meta’s massive investments in XR technology for our troops will save countless lives and dollars.” It’s a statement that carries weight, especially coming from someone who’s been on both sides of this story—first as the founder of Oculus, which Meta acquired for $2 billion in 2014, and later as the head of Anduril, a company he started in 2017 after a controversial exit from Meta. Zuckerberg echoed the sentiment in a statement shared by Anduril Industries. “We’re proud to partner with Anduril to help bring these technologies to the American servicemembers that protect our interests at home and abroad,” he said.
EagleEye, the flagship project of this partnership, is a glimpse into what’s possible when you combine Meta’s XR expertise with Anduril’s focus on military applications. Built on tech from Meta’s Reality Labs, the system will use sensors to enhance soldiers’ senses—imagine being able to hear an enemy approaching from miles away or see through walls with thermal imaging, all displayed on a heads-up display in your headset. It’ll also integrate with Anduril’s Lattice software, a command-and-control system that helps soldiers process battlefield data in real time. Add in Meta’s Llama AI model, and you’ve got a setup that can analyze situations and provide actionable insights faster than any human could.
For Luckey, this partnership feels like a full-circle moment. In a follow-up post, he reflected on the journey: “It is pretty cool to have everything at our fingertips for this joint effort—everything I made before Meta acquired Oculus, everything we made together, and everything we did on our own after I was fired.”
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