Skip to Content
Artificial intelligence

Palmer Luckey’s military startup will monitor US bases with AI

July 25, 2019
Several of Anduril's Lattice towers.
Several of Anduril's Lattice towers.Anduril

Anduril, a company founded by Oculus Rift inventor Palmer Luckey, has secured a contract to monitor US military bases with its autonomous surveillance tech.

The news: Government documents show that Anduril was recently awarded a $13.5 million contract to monitor US Marine bases with autonomous systems. Two of the bases are in Japan; the others are in Hawaii and Arizona.

Greater autonomy: The contract called for a system that will work around the clock to autonomously “detect, identify, classify, and track humans on foot, wheeled and tracked vehicles on land, surface swimmers, and surface vessels and boat.” Anduril makes just such a perimeter-monitoring system, called Lattice, which uses sensor towers, drones, and machine learning to automatically identify trespassers.

Outflanked: The fallout over Google’s involvement in Project Maven showed that the military use of AI is controversial. But as this contract proves, the technology is already rapidly moving into the defense realm. It also highlights how existing defense contractors may be outmaneuvered by companies used to working at startup speed.

Origin story: Anduril was founded by Palmer Luckey, the inventor of Oculus Rift, along with veterans of the intelligence startup Palantir. Lucky has courted controversy in the past for developing technology designed to help monitor the US border—an issue charged with political overtones.

To have more stories like this delivered directly to your inbox, sign up for our Webby-nominated AI newsletter The Algorithm. It's free.

Deep Dive

Artificial intelligence

DeepMind’s cofounder: Generative AI is just a phase. What’s next is interactive AI.

“This is a profound moment in the history of technology,” says Mustafa Suleyman.

AI hype is built on high test scores. Those tests are flawed.

With hopes and fears about the technology running wild, it's time to agree on what it can and can't do.

You need to talk to your kid about AI. Here are 6 things you should say.

As children start back at school this week, it’s not just ChatGPT you need to be thinking about.

AI language models are rife with different political biases

New research explains you’ll get more right- or left-wing answers, depending on which AI model you ask.

Stay connected

Illustration by Rose Wong

Get the latest updates from
MIT Technology Review

Discover special offers, top stories, upcoming events, and more.

Thank you for submitting your email!

Explore more newsletters

It looks like something went wrong.

We’re having trouble saving your preferences. Try refreshing this page and updating them one more time. If you continue to get this message, reach out to us at customer-service@technologyreview.com with a list of newsletters you’d like to receive.