A variety of emerging technologies are examined here. Very few of these are designed or marketed to be specific to intensive care, and few are traditional 'devices' that can be physically handled or attached to a patient. However, critical care is a distillation of acute hospital practice, and any health care technology that has an impact on diagnosis, monitoring, and management of acute conditions will be of heightened importance in the clinical pressure cooker of intensive care. Point-of-care testing, accelerated microbiological diagnostics, decision support systems and networked IT systems are all key developments that will exert an impact on future critical care practice.