Skip to Content
Smart cities

The tech behind the Thailand cave rescue

As of this writing, eight boys have been rescued from Tham Luang cave, and—in addition to some amazingly brave humans—there is some technology to thank.

Some background: A missing soccer team and its coach were found nine days after they were stranded in a flooded cave system, about 2.5 miles from the entrance. A rescue mission has been under way ever since.

Thanks, but no thanks: Although SpaceX CEO Elon Musk offered the services of his rocket company to create a submarine for the boys, rains steadily worsened the situation, and seasoned cave divers had to work quickly.

The tech: Drones, zoom lenses, and thermal cameras were used to create the first 3-D aerial map of the region and scout for cave access points. Powerful handheld radios have allowed the rescuers to communicate with the soccer team from long distances despite a lack of radio infrastructure in the area.

This story first appeared in our daily tech newsletter, The Download. Sign up here.

Keep Reading

Most Popular

Large language models can do jaw-dropping things. But nobody knows exactly why.

And that's a problem. Figuring it out is one of the biggest scientific puzzles of our time and a crucial step towards controlling more powerful future models.

OpenAI teases an amazing new generative video model called Sora

The firm is sharing Sora with a small group of safety testers but the rest of us will have to wait to learn more.

Google’s Gemini is now in everything. Here’s how you can try it out.

Gmail, Docs, and more will now come with Gemini baked in. But Europeans will have to wait before they can download the app.

This baby with a head camera helped teach an AI how kids learn language

A neural network trained on the experiences of a single young child managed to learn one of the core components of language: how to match words to the objects they represent.

Stay connected

Illustration by Rose Wong

Get the latest updates from
MIT Technology Review

Discover special offers, top stories, upcoming events, and more.

Thank you for submitting your email!

Explore more newsletters

It looks like something went wrong.

We’re having trouble saving your preferences. Try refreshing this page and updating them one more time. If you continue to get this message, reach out to us at customer-service@technologyreview.com with a list of newsletters you’d like to receive.