Palmer Luckey, the billionaire CEO of defense startup Anduril, is on a mission to equip the United States for the future of warfare—or at least his own, deeply sci-fi-inflected vision of that future. That includes the raising of genetically modified dogs outfitted with Anduril’s own technology.
Warhound, a Texas-based company that emerged from stealth late Thursday with $200 million in seed funding, wants to create four-legged super soldiers for the U.S. military, law enforcement, and first responders. It’s built upon a partnership between Anduril and Colossal Biosciences, the U.S.-based genetic engineering lab that revived the dire wolf from extinction and is trying to do the same thing to the wooly mammoth.
Cloned from “America’s top-performing dog arsenal,” Warhound’s military pups will be genetically modified “with characteristics suited to demanding missions,” according to a press release. The company—which describes itself as an “advanced canine genetics and cybernetics platform”—says it’s working under the auspices of the American Humane Society, meaning the dogs will supposedly receive “best-in-class training and care.” Beyond raising cybernetically outfitted canine Spartans, the company’s long-term goal is to reduce the United States’ dependence on Europe, which, according to Warhound, currently provides more than 80% of the country’s working military dogs.
” An accompanying illustration imagines what those “canine partners” might look like in the field: wolves decked out like Master Chief.
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