The army plans to grant the weapons manufacturer and control of one of the highest and long -term projects known as an integrated visual increase system (IVAS) pending the final approval of the Defense Department (DOD), Founder Palmer Luckey announced A post on the blog on Tuesday.
IVAS was first awarded to Microsoft in 2018 to develop augmented reality for soldiers based on a durable version of Hololens. The original budget for IVAS was set at $ 21.9 billion.
Anduril will now take control of the contract. While Microsoft is removed as the main contractor, the project does not start. The company will continue to be the cloud provider, according to Microsoft.
Anduril will be responsible for the supervision of production, the future development of both the hardware and the software, as well as the delivery schedules, Microsoft said.
The original idea was to give the troops a heads-up screen with features such as a thermal sensor, regular attack software (which provides various types of critical information) and maps.
Anduril’s grid software had already been added to Microsoft IVA headphones, The company announced In September. Lattice added the Vision Computer AI and other features that helped the handset to detect, watch and classify objects.
But Ivas had a long story history.
Back in 2022, the DOD Inspector General issued a report that says IVA did not do a pretty good job that serves people – which means that soldiers – who will use the headphones. The report warned, “The IVA supply without achieving the user could lead to a waste of $ 21.88 billion in taxpayers’ funds to achieve a system that soldiers may not want to use or use as provided.”
Microsoft’s prototypes suffered from technical issues, as prototypes tend to do, such as detecting virtual objects, according to sources Breaking the defense in 2023.
In August, the army said it was open to pull Microsoft away as a primary contractor, although the technician giant swore to enter any new bidding process to try to keep it, Reported Breaking Defense.
The posting on Luckey’s blog about Anduril’s victory is poetic and covered many festive territories, including DISS in a competitor. The blog suspension took completely comical in some places.
“The regular heads-up-displays that turn warriors into technologies and mate us with armed robotics were one of the products on the original Anduril deck for a reason,” he wrote.
“If Anduril was over twelve people when Ivas first arrived all these years ago (at least the Tragic pile The men did not win, our country really avoided a bullet there), I believe that our crazy stadium could have won this from the beginning, “he continued.
The tragic pile is Luckey’s ugly nickname for the Magic Leap, reportedly, among the 80 companies struggling to undertake this project. Others included Palantir and Kopin, which manufactures screens used in F-35 helmets, Breaking Defense said.
Luckey also bothers that a whole list of new features for the project was designed, but he didn’t name them. On the contrary, he justified this paragraph.
“Whatever you imagine, no matter how crazy you imagine I am, multiply it with ten and then do it again. I’m back, and I just start,” he promised.
Whether the project, according to the new primary contractor Anduril, will maintain the entire budget of $ 22 billion. The threats to reduce funding or cancel the program as a whole have been continued for years.
For Microsoft’s side, Mixed Reality Vice President Robin Seiler wrote in her public statement: “We are incredibly proud of the work our teams have put on to help the US Army transform his idea of a headset with a soldier Ars actually with reality with the IVAS program.
Still, 2025 is already formed to be a one -year hell for Luckey and Anduril. The company is in talks to raise up to $ 2.5 billion round with $ 28 billion. And he announced that the position of the new megafactory that creates weapons will be in Ohio.
Note: This story was informed to include Microsoft’s statement and to clarify that the official transfer is still pending DOD’s approval, although both companies have announced the change in the contract.
