Microsoft won a $22 billion contract for providing US Army with 120,000 AR headset.

Microsoft won a $22 billion contract for providing US Army with 120,000 AR headset.

Microsoft received the contract from the United States Army for providing to outfit the Army with tens of thousands of augmented reality headset based upon the HoloLens technology of Microsoft. The contract is worth $21.88 billion and for 10 years.

The order stands at providing 120,000 AR headsets for the Army. The technology uses the Integrated Visual Augmentation System (IVAS) design which aims for upgrading the capabilities of HoloLens that are needed by the soldier in the field.

The present contract is based upon the contract which Microsoft won back in 2018 that was priced at $480 million. Microsoft spokesperson, in a statement to TechCrunch, said, "Augmented reality technology will provide troops with more and better information to make decisions. This new work extends our longstanding, trusted relationship with the Department of Defense to this new area. The program delivers enhanced situational awareness, enabling information sharing and decision-making in a variety of scenarios".

This massive investment in the augmented reality technology endowed Microsoft to tackle base technology problem that might be seen to scale down the consumer and enterprise-level device in the future. Microsoft says this announcement marks the transition from prototyping these designs to producing and rolling them out in the field.