The SBMC program, previously known as the Integrated Visual Augmentation System (IVAS) Next, was initially awarded to Microsoft in 2018 with a $22 billion budget to develop AR glasses for soldiers. However, due to various issues, the Army reassigned management of the program to Anduril, with Microsoft remaining as a cloud provider. The collaboration between Anduril and Meta signifies a strategic move for Meta to enter the military headset market through Anduril, leveraging their combined expertise and resources. Luckey expressed his satisfaction with the partnership, highlighting the integration of past and present innovations from both companies and indicating a positive turn in his relationship with Meta.
Key takeaways:
- Anduril and Meta are collaborating to build extended reality (XR) devices for the U.S. military as part of the Soldier Borne Mission Command Next (SBMC) program.
- The partnership involves using Meta's AR/VR research and Llama AI model, combined with Anduril's Lattice command and control software, to provide soldiers with real-time battlefield intelligence.
- This collaboration marks a reconciliation between Palmer Luckey and Meta, following Luckey's firing from Facebook in 2017 after the acquisition of his startup Oculus.
- The product family being developed by Meta and Anduril is called EagleEye, which was initially imagined by Luckey in Anduril's early pitch deck.