Back in 2018, Alphabet’s moonshot division revealed that it’s looking into how machine learning could be applied to crop production. X today officially announced that its computational agriculture project is called “Mineral.”
Last March, X shared more details about its “early stage project focused on sustainable food production.” It coined the term “computational agriculture” to describe how “some of the challenges farmers face today could be helped with a mix of better data, machine learning, and yet-to-be developed technologies.” The research division previously looked at vertical farming but ended that project after not being able to grow stable crops.
X hopes that “better tools will enable the agriculture industry to transform how food is grown.” There is a pressing need for increased food production as the population grows. Meanwhile, climate change is disrupting that supply and might make things more difficult moving forward.
So far, the team has been “developing and testing a range of software and hardware prototypes based on breakthroughs in artificial intelligence, simulation, sensors, robotics and more.” This includes a roving “Plant buggy” that’s deployed in fields to collect “plant-level insights.”
Powered by solar panels, there are multiple configurations to account for different plants. There is GPS with “sophisticated cameras and machine perception tools inside the buggy can identify issues in the field and analyze plant traits.”
Today’s announcement sees this X project get a new name: Mineral.
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