RoboticsCats consortium takes third in XPRIZE Wildfire competition

AURA Foresight, an international consortium that includes Hong Kong-based RoboticsCats, has been named third place awardee in the Autonomous Wildfire Response track of the $11 million XPRIZE Wildfire competition, winning $500,000. XPRIZE announced the results at an awardee ceremony at the New York City Fire Museum. Anduril Industries placed first and Dryad Networks second. The final test took place in June 2026 in the Alaskan wilderness. Teams had to autonomously detect and fully suppress a high-risk fire within 10 minutes of ignition across 1,000 square kilometres of difficult terrain, while leaving decoy fires alone. Judges credited AURA with autonomous and persistent detection that cleared the 10-minute detection requirement. Three finalists in the track received awards. The consortium formed in late 2022 and brings together four organisations across three continents: AURA at the University of Bristol in the United Kingdom, Fire Foresight and Taz Drone Solutions in Australia, Little Place Labs in the United States, and RoboticsCats in Hong Kong. RoboticsCats develops AI-based tools for early wildfire detection used by governments, businesses and individuals. The team describes the award as a milestone rather than an endpoint and intends to continue the collaboration, pursuing autonomous wildfire response work in the United States and other fire-prone regions. XPRIZE Wildfire is now moving into an Impact Phase, with PG&E as lead sponsor, aimed at moving technologies from both competition tracks toward deployment through field trials, technology evaluation and shared findings. There are direct Santa Cruz County ties. RoboticsCats took part in the fourth cohort of Santa Cruz Accelerates, which the company credits as part of its early development. The Fire Foresight team also visited Santa Cruz Works and met people from AirSpace Integration, DART and Joby Aviation, part of the advanced air mobility cluster in the county. For a county with its own wildfire exposure, the result connects local programmes and companies to detection and suppression work being tested at an international level.