Palmer Luckey

With his defense technology startup Anduril Industries, Palmer Luckey is betting that the future of military technology lies in advances in software engineering and computing. And with a valuation of $14 billion, investors in the company seem to agree.

Anduril—named after a sword from Lord of the Rings meaning “flame of the west”—has gained a reputation as a disruptor in the defense sector. The company counts the U.S. Department of Defense, the U.K. Ministry of Defence, and the Australian Defence Force among its clients. It has sold more than a dozen autonomous defense and weapons systems to the U.S. since it was founded in 2017.

These systems—which include autonomous drones, rockets, and submarines—are primarily powered by Anduril’s Lattice OS, which it describes as an “AI-powered open operating system” that integrates AI-driven decision-making with flexible, scalable hardware.

Describing Anduril’s ALTIUS drone in an interview with NPR, Luckey explained that the drone has “a Lattice brain” that is able to seek and identify targets and fly into them, “even if they’re jamming you."

Anduril’s tech is quickly spreading across the world. One of its first contracts was to supply AI-driven surveillance towers along the U.S.-Mexico border for the Trump administration. The company’s drones were in Ukraine by the second week of the war, its software continuously updated remotely. Anduril’s newest venture, “Arsenal” aims to use a software platform—and associated manufacturing facilities—to “hyperscale” hardware manufacturing.

Luckey previously spun up one of the first virtual reality startups, Oculus VR, for which he graced a 2015 cover of TIME, before selling it to Facebook for $2 billion in 2014 at the age of 21. He has been described as having a worldview of hyper-techno-optimism and is a Republican donor, but he has said he believes his business is set to benefit regardless of political administration.