XPRIZE has launched an ambitious new contest that is focused on finding better ways to detect and fight forest fires. The four-year global competition will award $11 million in prize funding to teams who can develop and demonstrate fully-autonomous capabilities to detect and extinguish wildfires.

“We have been fighting wildfires the same way for decades – it’s not working, and the destruction is getting increasingly worse,” said Peter H. Diamandis, executive chairman of the XPRIZE board. “We need a radical re-invention of how we detect and battle these blazes. The convergence of exponential technologies such as AI, robotics, drones, and sensors offer us the opportunity to detect wildfires at inception, and put them out in minutes before they spread – that’s the mission of this XPRIZE.”