US military’s $22 billion smart glasses program gets boost from Anduril

Anduril Industries disclosed the results of its independent development of an augmented‑reality (AR) headset, EagleEye, positioning the company as a front‑runner in the Pentagon’s multibillion‑dollar effort to field soldier‑worn smart glasses.

The announcement follows a multi‑year effort by the US Department of Defence that began in 2019 when the Pentagon initially tasked Microsoft with producing an Integrated Visual Augmentation System (IVAS) based on the company’s HoloLens hardware, Defense Express reports.

That program ran into technical problems and delivery delays, and Microsoft entered a collaboration with Anduril in September 2024. According to the timeline provided by Anduril, Microsoft transferred full development responsibility to Anduril in April 2025 while remaining responsible only for manufacturing final units.

In May 2025 the program was retooled as Soldier‑Borne Mission Command (SBMC) and Anduril said it later partnered with Meta to co‑develop the system. Anduril’s public materials list Meta alongside other industry partners — OSI, Qualcomm Technologies, Inc., and Gentex Corporation — and notably make no mention of Microsoft.

EagleEye departs from the bulky mask form factor of earlier prototypes, adopting a lightweight, regular‑eyewear design that eliminates dangling cables, Anduril said. The company also released images and a scenario video that showcase a user interface modeled on commercial gaming layouts: a minimap, compass, menu selector, a dedicated drone‑feed window and a rear‑view feature. Anduril highlighted an embedded AI suite that it says can identify and mark friendlies and foes and annotate points of interest.

Beyond the headset itself, Anduril described EagleEye as one component of a wider command, control, communications, computers, intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance (C4ISR) architecture — a networked system intended to link individual soldiers to higher echelons, up to a Pentagon command center.

The SBMC effort is widely reported to be a major Pentagon initiative — Anduril noted the program’s approximate value at $22 billion — and the company said it is prepared to compete aggressively for the contract, offering what it describes as a single‑vendor solution.

Pentagon officials have not yet announced a final award decision. Anduril’s demonstration underscores growing industry momentum to translate commercial AR advances into military applications, and highlights the complex partnerships now shaping the SBMC program.

By Sabina Mammadli