Meta and former Oculus founder Palmer Luckey's defense tech company are working on developing an XR headset for the military
Palmer Luckey, co-founder of Oculus, and his defense technology company Anduril have announced that they will partner with Meta to design, build and deploy XR hardware for the U.S. military. Oculus was acquired by Meta in 2014 and later absorbed into Meta's AR/VR research division, Reality Labs, so this will be Luckey working with his former company again.
Anduril and Meta Team Up to Transform XR for the American Military | Anduril
Anduril is a defense technology company founded in 2017 by Luckey and others who were fired from Meta, and develops military autonomous systems using AI and robotics. In December 2024, the company announced a 'strategic partnership with OpenAI to develop advanced AI solutions for national security missions,' focusing on improving the nation's counter-unmanned aerial systems (CUAS) and their ability to detect, assess and respond to potentially lethal aerial threats in real time.
The partnership with Meta was born out of the Next Generation Integrated Visual Augmentation System (IVAS) development program. The program was contracted with Microsoft in 2018 to develop HoloLens-like AR glasses for soldiers. Microsoft had signed a contract with the U.S. Army worth up to $21.9 billion (approximately 3.15 trillion yen), but the results of the test evaluation were poor and it was not ready for practical use.
Microsoft's 'Military Hololens' contracted for up to 2.5 trillion yen has been in development for three years and has not yet reached a practical level - GIGAZINE
In February 2025, Luckey announced on his blog that Anduril had taken over the IVAS development program from Microsoft. Luckey said that he had had the opportunity to be involved in a small part of an Army project as a student before founding Oculus, and that he had long believed that VR/AR headsets should be introduced to the battlefield.
by Fortune Brainstorm Tech
According to Anduril, the device being developed at IVAS, called EagleEye, will be developed based on technology from Meta's AR/VR research division, Reality Labs. The idea is to use Meta's large-scale language model, Llama, to leverage Anduril's command and control software, Lattice, to provide soldiers with real-time battlefield information on a heads-up display.
When Anduril was chosen to take over the IVAS development program, Luckey wrote on X (formerly Twitter) that, 'All of my early investors had worked with me for years on Oculus VR, and when they saw the EagleEye headset in a draft of my first pitch as Anduril, they pointed out that I seemed to be describing things in an illogical order. They correctly assumed that I was obsessed with winning the skirmish over the future of AR/VR and proving that they were right and that the people who fired me were wrong.'
I have to give some credit to our earliest investors for helping me come to that conclusion.
— Palmer Luckey (@PalmerLuckey) February 11, 2025
All of them had worked with me for years via Oculus VR, and when they saw the EagleEye headset in our first Anduril pitch deck draft, they pointed out that it seemed like I was…
Regarding the partnership with Meta, Luckey said, 'I am excited to be working with Meta again. Of all the areas where dual-use technology can make a difference in America, this is the one I am most excited about. For many years, my mission has been to turn warfighters into technomancers. The products we are developing together with Meta will do just that.'
'It's really amazing to have everything I built before Meta acquired Oculus, the things we built together, and the things we built on our own after I was fired, all here at home for this collaboration,' Luckey said at X.
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.
— Palmer Luckey (@PalmerLuckey) May 29, 2025
It's time to finish the fight.
'The world is on the brink of a new era of computing, where people will have access to infinite intelligence and will expand their senses and perception like never before,' said Andrew Bosworth, Meta's CTO. 'Our national security will benefit immeasurably from American industry enabling these technologies.'
By the way, Lucky is known to be a fan of Japanese games and anime, and even participated in Machi★Asobi vol.18 held in May 2017 cosplaying as Quiet from ' Metal Gear Solid V. '
Oculus founder Palmer Luckey participated in a cosplay fashion show in a micro bikini - GIGAZINE
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