Dubai, UAE — XPANCEO, a deep-tech company that develops smart contact lenses as the ultimate form factor for AI-powered XR computing, has unveiled six prototypes at GITEX Global 2025.
The company demonstrated significant advancements in AR vision technologies, introducing the Interactive Smart Contact Lens for AR Vision. This lens incorporates a microdisplay along with an external sensor suite for spatial tagging and position tracking, delivering interactive, context-aware AR visuals that provide users with useful information based on their focus — from currency exchange rates to live data about nearby prototypes. Accompanying this, the Holographic Smart Contact Lens for AR Vision with Helmet Companion showcased AR’s potential in extreme environments where glasses are impractical, wirelessly receiving power and content from a helmet device and illustrating how minimal lenses can transform AR experiences.
Significant progress in lens powering and hardware engineering was revealed through three novel prototypes. The Smart Contact Lens for Health Readings integrates a miniature sensor for detecting glucose levels in tear fluid and wirelessly transmitting real-time data to smartphones. The lens uses electrochemical technology like that of compact glucometers, and it’s now capable of detecting glucose in tear fluid, while work is ongoing to achieve reliable calibration. Complementing this device, the Compact Companion for Smart Contact Lens delivers an energy-efficient wireless link to the contact lens to provide power and a data stream. The unique antenna technology increases the efficiency up to threefold when compared to traditional wearable antenna solutions. Lastly, the Smart Contact Lens with an Integrated Microbattery demonstrated autonomous power management. The current prototype uses the smallest off-the-shelf battery, providing seamless encapsulation and recharge capabilities. Development is underway on a custom microbattery lineup specifically tailored for ultra-thin smart contact lenses.
Expanding biosensing capabilities, XPANCEO presented the Smart Contact Lens with IOP Sensor, which achieves medical-grade sensitivity by embedding an optical pattern that dynamically reacts to intraocular pressure changes without affecting vision. Users can capture the pattern with an AI-powered app trained on 10,000+ real IOP measurements to instantly assess eye pressure — a game changer for accessible glaucoma monitoring.
In addition, XPANCEO introduced improved versions of previous prototypes, including its innovative 2D Gold Conductors showcased in both a single-pixel display and a large flexible film to demonstrate the scale. The company also unveiled the enhancement of the Smart Contact Lens with Nanoparticles for Color Correction, using specially developed 2D-material-based nanoparticles to help people with color blindness distinguish RGB spectra, and exhibited earlier versions of the Holographic Smart Contact Lens for AR Vision to highlight the remarkable evolution of its technology.
This summer, XPANCEO closed a 250 million Series A round at a 1.35 billion valuation — the largest Series A ever in the MENA region and globally in AR/VR and wearables, and among the top three in hardware history. Following this massive amount of funding, the six new prototypes show that the company is rapidly translating its record-breaking investment into tangible, functional breakthroughs, bringing fully integrated smart lenses closer than ever to a commercial reality.
