A few years back in November 2018, Microsoft was awarded a $480 million contract for its augmented reality headset, the HoloLens, by the U.S. military. Though it was a big win for the company, it wasn’t exactly met with applause.
The deal was followed by protests from employees worried about their work contributing to the death of others as the Integrated Visual Augmentation System (IVAS) was designed to help soldiers practice.
At the time, CEO Satya Nadella dealt with the situation rather bluntly, reaffirming that Microsoft would continue to engage with the U.S. military despite employee disapproval. Following suit, today one of the world’s largest tech giants did just that, winning another contract with the United States Army for the augmented reality headset.
Today’s deal between the U.S. Army and Microsoft is worth a whopping $21.9 billion, more than forty times the value of the first IVAS contract. The multibillion-dollar agreement will be spread out over the span of ten years, as reported by CNBC. As per the contract, 120,000 customized AR headsets are to be built in the given period.
Employees of the Redmond-based corporation have yet to respond. Whether the Microsoft workers will stay quiet about yet another military deal this time remains unknown.
