Meta launches UK hub for AI-powered Ray-Ban smart glasses
Meta has opened a new £12m audio research lab in Cambridge, aimed at improving the sound capabilities of its AR and AI glasses, including the Ray-Ban Meta and the newly announced Oakley Meta.
The move strengthens Meta’s focus on wearable technology that responds intelligently to users’ surroundings.
The lab is built to simulate a wide range of real-world acoustic environments, from near-silent chambers to echo-filled cathedrals, allowing researchers to train AI systems that can isolate speech, filter background noise, and adjust in real-time to user behaviour.
Features include a configurable reverberation room, motion tracking spaces and instrumented mock home environments.
Meta says the lab will play a central role in making wearable audio more adaptive and useful – like enabling a user to listen to a podcast clearly while walking through a noisy street.
The investment forms part of Meta’s broader push into AI-powered hardware and comes as the company seeks to strengthen its engineering presence in the UK.
Cambridge is already home to a cluster of Meta’s hardware teams, and the new facility is positioned within the government-backed Ox-Cam innovation corridor.
“Creating this world-class audio lab in Cambridge is a sign of our long-term commitment to the UK,” claimed Joel Kaplan, Meta’s chief global affairs officer. “We want the brightest minds making our glasses the smartest on the market.”
AI rivalry and UK ambitions
The opening comes during a period of intense competition among US tech giants over AI talent and capabilities.
This week, Bloomberg first reported that Apple’s head of AI models, Ruoming Pang, has left the company to join Meta’s super intelligence team.
The defection follows criticism that Apple’s in-house models lag behind rivals such as OpenAI, Anthropic and Meta itself.
Meta’s announcement also aligns with a wider UK strategy to attract long-term R&D investment.
Chancellor Rachel Reeves welcomed the lab as a boost for the Ox-Cam corridor, and said Labour is backing high-tech sectors through a planned £22bn public R&D budget – part of its aim to position the UK as a global innovation leader.
Still, while Meta’s investment signals confidence in the UK’s tech talent and research base, some observers note that real-world adoption of smart glasses remains a niche market.
Success may ultimately depend not just on technical capability, but on consumer appetite for wearables that seamlessly blend hardware, AI and daily life.