Facebook Interested In Developing AR Chips

It appears that Facebook is interested in developing its own chips for augmented reality solutions. Several job postings have been spotted which reveal that the company is hiring engineers who will be tasked with designing custom augmented reality chips. The job postings have been advertised by a group inside the company called Facebook Reality Labs which was previously known as Oculus Research. Oculus is the VR company that Facebook acquired a few years back.

The job postings clearly mention that the positions require expertise in the design of custom chips. It’s thus a strong indication that the company wants to make its own chips for AR solutions. Augmented reality does require significant computing power and custom chips can help the company provide more powerful AR experiences.

Facebook hasn’t talked about its AR hardware plans in detail so it remains to be seen if its Oculus subsidiary is making a headset for augmented reality applications. The company already sells virtual reality headsets.

With many major companies doing at least something in the augmented reality space, it’s to be expected of Facebook to dabble as well, particularly when it already has a major stake in the virtual reality segment. Exactly what products these custom AR chips from Facebook will power remains to be seen.

Adnan Farooqui
Categories: General
Tags: Augmented Reality (AR), Facebook