Microsoft Corp. has won a deal worth up to $21.88 billion over 10 years to sell the U.S Army augmented reality headsets, according to Reuters. The headsets are based on the company’s HoloLens product and backed by Azure cloud computing services.
Microsoft has over the past two years worked with the army on the prototyping phase on the Integrated Visual Augmentation System which has now moved into the production phase.
Microsoft Technical Fellow Alex Kipman said the headsets are designed to deliver “enhanced situational awareness, enabling information sharing and decision-making in a variety of scenarios.”
The headsets will be manufactured in the U.S
Microsoft was also in line to win a $10 billion JEDI cloud computing contract with the Pentagon, although the deal remains in dispute in a lawsuit filed by Amazon.com Inc.
A worker’s group has criticized Microsoft’s contract with the army and called the company to stand for transgender people instead of building weapons of war.
Microsoft stock is currently gaining. MSFT: NASDAQ is up 1.06% on premarket
