“Climate change is a real and pressing issue that we must find new ways to address as quickly and efficiently as possible, including through today’s most advanced AI technologies,” said Alessandro Curioni, IBM Fellow and Vice President, Accelerated Discovery at IBM.

IBM continues to develop its strategy for artificial intelligence models that are trained on geospatial information such as satellite imagery and provide the capability to address climate change.

Alessandro Curioni, IBM Fellow and Vice President, Accelerated Discovery at IBM added “AI foundation models utilizing geospatial data can be a game-changer because they allow us to better understand, prepare and address the many climate-related events effecting the health of our planet in a manner and speed never before seen. We are hopeful these technologies can help accelerate the rate at which we derive and apply solutions for a safer and healthier planet for future generations”.

Unlike traditional AI models tailored to specialist tasks, knowledge-based geospatial models – spanning satellite and weather data – create knowledge representations from petabytes and exabytes of climate-related data that can facilitate accelerated and streamlined discovery of environmental insights and solutions.

” This research underscores the vital role of AI in tackling global issues, emphasizing the urgency of continued exploration and innovation. By harnessing the power of AI, we are not merely addressing challenges; we are proactively shaping solutions for a sustainable future. In a world confronted by unprecedented challenges, MBZUAI stands at the forefront of pioneering research in AI, recognizing the transformative power it holds”, said professor Tim Baldwin, MBZUAI Acting Provost.

These models can also be refined and applied across multiple domains defining or revealing climate change, from flood detection to fire scarring.

Beyond their initial commitment to build and deploy a geospatial foundation model, IBM and NASA have also announced work on a new, separate AI foundation model for weather and climate. By applying AI technology from IBM, the model aims to improve the accuracy, speed and affordability of weather forecasting and other climate applications.

Sample applications of the model not only include forecasting, but also super-resolution downscaling, identifying conditions conducive to wildfires, and predicting meteorological phenomena. IBM researchers will work alongside NASA domain experts to train and validate the model.

The Copernicus Masters is the global innovation competition at the forefront of Earth observation (EO) data utilization. It awards innovators fostering new solutions and concepts that showcase the benefits of the European Copernicus services to our everyday life.

The Galileo Masters is the global innovation competition scouting for cutting-edge solutions using satellite navigation data. From April onwards, with the support of our global space network of more than 89 partners, we are looking for the best GNSS solutions and business cases in the field of e.g. agriculture, healthcare, cybersecurity, environment.

Do not miss the opportunity to become part of these two leading competitions for innovations and win one of the attractive prizes provided by Bulgaria as a partner of the competitions!

Join the competitions from here:

Galileo Masters – https://galileo-masters.eu/apply/

Copernicus Masters – https://copernicus-masters.com/apply/

Prizes:

Galileo Masters: https://galileo-masters.eu/galileo-prizes/galileo-prize-bulgaria/

Copernicus Masters: https://copernicus-masters.com/copernicus-prizes/copernicus-prize-bulgaria/

Bakur Kvezereli did. Raised on an Eastern European organic tomato farm, he saw labor shortages, pesticide problems and rising energy costs. Years later, studying at MIT in 2014, it dawned on him that AI could help address these issues for farmers.

A few years later, he founded Ztractor, an autonomous electric tractor startup based in Palo Alto, Calif.

Ztractor offers tractors that can be configured to work on 135 different types of crops. They rely on the NVIDIA Jetson edge AI platform for computer vision tasks to help farms improve plant conditions, increase crop yields and achieve higher efficiency.

Going electric means Ztractor machines also don’t belch out plumes of black diesel exhaust.

The company is among a growing field of agriculture companies like Bilberry, FarmWise, SeeTree, Smart Ag and John Deere-owned Blue River adopting NVIDIA GPUs for training and inference.

AI Supports Organic Farms

In many countries, farm labor is limited. A survey by the California Farm Bureau Federation reported that 56 percent of more than 1,000 farmers were unable to hire adequate labor.

ZTractor offers three different models to help assist farmers. Each sports 67 sensors, six cameras and GPS. The tractors collect field data that’s fed into models run on the NVIDIA Jetson edge AI platform to provide insights about crop conditions.

Pests can be identified in milliseconds with convolutional neural networks, quantified and mapped to a particular zone, enabling faster treatment. If aphids are invading, and it’s an organic farm, it might be time to release the ladybugs to gobble them up. The alternative of relying on periodic boots on the ground for inspections might otherwise lead to crop yield losses.

Ztractor machines can also handle soil preparation tasks like tilling and disking. It can work with seeding and precision weed control equipment — like smart sprayers with AI-driven cameras — to help make up for labor shortages for these tasks.

The machines can run eight to 12 hours on a charge, depending on the unit.

Jetson-Driven Tractor Autonomy

Farmers can set coordinates for the tractor’s path using satellite data or aerial images and the onboard GPS for geofencing the machines.

The tractors run the TrailNet model, processed on the NVIDIA Jetson Xavier, for real-time path planning. The neural network — trained on a custom dataset of about 500 images — was run on cloud instances of NVIDIA GPUs.

Its plug-in electric system offers a 75 percent reduction in energy costs compared with diesel tractors, according to Kvezereli. He said:

“There is a demand for zero-emission farming from both a public policy and customer perspective,”

Pilot tests of Ztractor’s system are underway at several organic garlic family farms based in Gilroy, Calif., just southeast of Silicon Valley.