All the heavy lifting: 170 years of the elevator

At 85 sq ft, B2 is about the size of the average Mumbai living room. “It’s ideal for moving wedding guests, conference delegates and other large crowds at the venue,” says Amit Gossain, managing director of Kone Elevators India, which developed the lift along with Reliance Industries and Samsung. The world’s tallest elevator isn’t in a building, it’s in a mine shaft at AngloGold Ashanti’s Mponeng gold mine in South Africa. Inside the 2,074-ft Shanghai Tower, elevators designed by the Japanese Mitsubishi Electric Corporation in 2017 can climb 67 ft per second. “How can we make our elevators and escalators smarter, smoother, safer and more intuitive?” The next frontier globally: AI that analyses destinations, anticipates rush hour and reads car capacities.