Zuckerberg + Luckey = WAR DOGS

Welcome to AI Collision 💥,

In today’s collision between AI and our world:

• VR games to war games
• Follow the defence money
• John Sith

If that’s enough to get the war games simulating, read on…

AI Collision 💥

It’s funny how things come full circle.

When they were (billion dollar) kids Palmer Luckey and Mark Zuckerberg were chasing virtual reality dreams. The idea that we’d all one day strap on a headset and live in the metaverse.

Still a legitimate vision, and I do think that’s a major part of consumer devices in the not-so-distant future, but at the time it was a bit pie-inthe-sky stuff.

However, thanks to the insane growth of Facebook, it was stuff that Mark Zuckerberg thought was worth around $2 billion.

In 2014, Facebook snapped up Luckey’s Oculus for $2 billion. Seven years late Zuckerberg bet a big chunk of Facebook on this virtual reality future… right down to renaming the company Meta (NASDAQ:META) and making a dedicated play at the metaverse.

That hasn’t quite paid off, but luckily Facebook/Meta is big enough to absorb Zuck’s lofty dreams. Their big bet now is on AI, seems like the smarter play short term that fits that “Meta” vision long term.

However, it seems like Meta isn’t just going big on AI anymore. And neither Zuck nor Luckey are kids. Now they’re war dogs.

Last week, Meta and Anduril announced a major new partnership to bring advanced XR (extended reality) tools to the U.S. military.

Meta’s headset technology (i.e., originally Luckey’s Oculus) will plug into Anduril’s battlefield AI systems. Soldiers will train in next-gen virtual environments. Commanders will use immersive interfaces to run drone swarms and manage combat missions. The same core tech once pitched as the gateway to a digital utopia is now being hardwired into the future of warfare.

Anduril is fast shaping up to be the most important military tech company in America. Sure, you’ve got the big dogs there in RTX (NYSE:RTX), Lockheed (NYSE:LMT) and Boeing (NYSE:BA), but Anduril is aggressive, high-tech… dare I say, cool.

You could say both men are living out their Tony Stark fantasies now. Not just world-changing technologists, but builders of the next-generation arsenal. Just… without the flying suits.

This partnership lands at a very interesting moment for the U.S. and its allies.

Just as this deal was announced, reports surfaced that Palantir (NASDAQ:PLTR) may have been tapped to lead a vast new domestic data collection effort in America. The kind of all-seeing program that smacks of a post-9/11 redux for the AI age.

Meanwhile, tensions in Ukraine are accelerating — not slowing. Ukraine’s wild drone attacks on Russian bombers have been everywhere in the last 24 hours. And across the Atlantic, the UK is openly repositioning for a new era of military confrontation. The words “rearm” and “weaponise” are back in vogue in Whitehall.

The UK is racing to rebuild its nuclear deterrent and harden its conventional forces, with new funding heading toward companies like BAE Systems (LSE:BA) and QinetiQ (LSE:QQ).

In short, defence is back. Not just in policy circles, but on the money side of the table.

For investors, this could mark the start of a major re-rating for defence and dual-use tech.

Anduril itself remains private — for now. But Meta is public, and this deal shows that its XR investment isn’t just about social media anymore. It could soon be backed by government contracts and defence budgets.

Palantir? Already up big this year, but if it secures this new domestic project, its data empire could enter an entirely new scale. And the US is clearly pushing a whole new defence agenda.

All this mixes in with AI because at the heart of the Meta nad Anduril deal is AI. At the heart of Palantir’s new gig, AI. And at the heart of the latest defence tech the US is planning to spend up big on… AI.

The AI investment game is certainly about the players you’d expect, but don’t neglect the impact of AI on defence, and the massive money flow that’s heading into the companies making it happen.

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Boomers & Busters 💰

AI and AI-related stocks moving and shaking up the markets this week. (All performance data below over the rolling week).

Boom 📈

• UiPath (NYSE:PATH) up 7%
• Palantir (NASDAQ:PLTR) up 7%
• Broadcom (NASDAQ:AVGO) up 6%

Bust 📉

• Xpeng (NYSE:XPEV) down 3%
• Intel (NASDAQ:INTC) down 3%
• Tower Semiconductor (NASDAQ:TSEM) down 3%

From the hive mind 🧠

• We’re so cooked. Quite the description when your livelihood is threatened by something like AI. But it’s also very real when you see how very real AI now is.
• Speaking of AI and jobs and fierce debate over who owns what and who should own creativity, looks like there’s no progress in that debate in the UK.
• Over the weekend there was a viral video going around purporting to be leaked images and film from the set of the upcoming Avengers: Doomsday set. Turns out it was all fake… around 7 million views later. See it for yourself, but this is the world we now live in.

Artificial Polltelligence 🗳️

Weirdest AI image of the day

John Sith : a Star Wars Revenge Story: Winter 2027

ChatGPT’s random quote of the day

Thanks for reading, and don’t forget to leave comments and questions below,

Sam Volkering

Editor-in-Chief

AI Collision