A London-based company has received government funding to develop artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning for grassland monitoring and management to support decarbonisation, with a particular focus on dairy farms.
Early stage start-up listt.io, which concentrates on technology solutions for regenerative agriculture, has developed an autonomous soil and crop health monitoring solution, based on mobile robotics for agriculture.
Its aim to deliver high-accuracy sensors to provide high-integrity soil and crop data for reporting and validation purposes.
It has received £132,147 for the project, which will use AI across the full stack of such solutions – from translating earth observation (EO) data to actionable areas, identifying sample points, to interpreting the data gathered.
AI projects
listt.io received the £132,147 funding through the government’s Artificial Intelligence for Decarbonisation programme, which has funded 12 projects via two ‘streams’.
Steam 2, under which listt.io received funding, funds projects to help drive decarbonisation in three sectors: Power, industry, and agriculture.
Other projects that received funding in this category include a solar energy project run by the University of Nottingham (£133,932), which will use AI to improve forecasting of solar energy production; and a Secqai Ltd. project to support the development of ultra-low-power AI technology, mirroring the neural structure of the human brain, cutting the carbon footprint of traditional AI hardware (£100,000).
Commenting on the announcement of successful applicants to the programme, Minister for Energy Efficiency and Green Finance Lord Callanan said:
“It’s projects like those announced today (Wednesday, August 15) that will take us to the next step on our ambitious journey to becoming net zero, while boosting our energy security and creating a new wave of skilled jobs for the future.”
“AI is delivering transformative change in the UK,” Minister for AI and Intellectual Property, Viscount Camrose added.
“These winning projects are yet another example of how we are tapping into our world-class research base and homegrown expertise to tackle one of the most pressing global challenges of our time.
“Whether backing projects to help us slash emissions or supporting research to revolutionise healthcare for patients, we’re harnessing the enormous potential of AI technologies to improve people’s lives.”
