In 2021, Microsoft signed a $22 billion deal with the US Army to develop the Integrated Visual Augmentation System (IVAS), based on its HoloLens headset. Not everyone was thrilled with the idea of producing AR headsets for the US military—intended to improve "situational awareness, target engagement, and informed decision-making"—and, as usual with military procurement, there were bumps and delays along the way, but despite all of that the program continued to grind forward. Now, however, the IVAS headset is facing potentially its biggest challenge yet: They're just too damn expensive.
A Bloomberg report says the army plans to order up to 121,000 IVAS headset, depending on the outcome of testing that's scheduled to wrap up in mid-2025. Tests are currently "going much better than the first time around," Army acquisition chief Doug Bush said at the recent Association of the US Army conference, and "a lot of the problems [in earlier iterations] have been fixed." But sticker shock remains: The headsets are currently projected to sell for $80,000 each, and the army wants them to come in a "substantially less" than that.
