A Smarter Way to Grow Food Crops? A.I. Is on the Case
The University of California (UC), Davis, was recently awarded $20 million as part of a multi-institutional collaboration to establish a new institute focused on enabling the next generation of food systems through the integration of artificial intelligence (AI) technologies. The award is part of a larger investment recently announced by the National Science Foundation (NSF) in partnership with several federal agencies, distributing a total of $140 million to fund seven complementary AI research institutes across the nation.
The AI Institute for Next Generation Food Systems (AIFS) aims to meet growing demands in the nation’s food supply by increasing efficiencies using AI and bioinformatics, spanning the entire system — from growing crops through consumption. This includes optimizing plant traits for yield, crop quality, and disease resistance through advances in molecular breeding, in addition to minimizing resource consumption and waste through development of agriculture-specific AI applications, sensing platforms, and robotics. The team’s plan also intends to benefit consumers through enhancements to food safety and development of new tools to provide real-time assessment of meals that can guide personalized health decisions.
The institute has been designed to be inclusive, fostering collaborations to develop open-source AI solutions across the food system. Given food’s fundamental role in human health and well-being, coupled with its far-reaching impacts on the national economy and environment, the institute will bring together more than 40 researchers from six institutions: UC, Davis; UC, Berkeley; Cornell University; University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign; UC Division of Agriculture and Natural Resources; and the USDA Agricultural Research Service.
Read the complete story here.
Subscribe to eNewsletter
