Tech Duo Stunned the Military With AI Night Vision That Beat $30,000 Goggles

For decades, night vision technology has remained largely unchanged, relying on expensive, analog systems that cost anywhere from $13,000 to $30,000 per unit. Despite ongoing efforts by the U.S. military to transition to digital alternatives, night vision remains a hardware problem, with defense contractors like L3Harris and Elbit America continuing to dominate the market with costly, legacy technology. However, a new approach—one that treats night vision as a software problem rather than a hardware one—may finally be shifting the landscape. Deepnight, a startup founded by childhood friends Lucas Young and Thomas Li, is attempting to redefine digital night vision by leveraging AI and mass-produced smartphone cameras rather than proprietary military hardware. Both former software eng