Saudi tech startup in ‘augmented reality’ deal with Google

JEDDAH: A Saudi-owned tech startup has gone into partnership with Google, prompting speculation that the aim is to launch a new augmented reality device to rival those by Meta and Apple.

The startup, Magic Leap, is based in Florida and has expertise in optics and device manufacturing. It is working with Google on “building immersive experiences that blend the physical and digital worlds,” it said.

“We’ve shipped a couple of different versions of augmented reality devices so far, so we’re out there delivering things, and Google has a long history of platforms thinking,” Magic Leap’s chief technology officer Julie Larson-Green said. “So we’re thinking, putting our expertise and their expertise together, there’s lots of things we could end up doing.”

Google is an investor in Magic Leap, which is majority owned by the Public Investment Fund, Saudi Arabia’s sovereign wealth fund. The startup was an early innovator in augmented reality, but struggled to find a consumer niche and more recently started exploring arrangements to licence its technology or produce components for others.

If Google were to jump back into making an augmented reality device, it would be yet another dramatic twist in the company’s on-again, off-again relationship with the technology. It was also an early mover more than a decade ago, when it introduced its Google Glass smart glasses in 2012.

However, consumers recoiled at the product’s clunky design and privacy concerns, and Google retreated from the consumer market in 2015 and later abandoned the enterprise market as well.