Alphabet shuts down agricultural AI robotics startup Mineral, partially licenses it to Driscoll’s

Google LLC’s parent company Alphabet Inc. today shut down Mineral, a moonshot tech startup making artificial intelligence robots for agriculture, and will license some of its assets to berry grower Driscoll’s Inc.

Mineral was founded in 2011 as a division of Alphabet’s Moonshot Technology Lab, X. 2020 The company has a vision of using AI and robotic “buggys” to analyze crops to improve yields and sustainability. Reports The company graduated from the lab last year to become an independent subsidiary of Alphabet, but has struggled to find its footing among the competition, according to Bloomberg.

Mineral proposes using sustainable hardware such as solar panels for mobile robots that use cameras and machine learning algorithms to patrol fields and autonomously scan plants. The sensors, in conjunction with external data such as satellite, weather and soil data, would enable the buggy’s AI to identify plant patterns and potential problems with the crops, giving farmers better information about their harvest.

This provides farmers with a comprehensive source of information with environmental considerations at its core, helping them understand their fields and crops holistically, so they can more productively manage their use of fertilizers, chemicals and water. By using When collected by robots in the field, along with other data, they eliminate the need to bring sensors out themselves and give people access to sustainable technology at hand.

The first robotic buggies were used to survey soybeans in Illinois and strawberries in California, and the same technology has also been applied to scan berry, lettuce, oilseeds, oats, barley and melon crops.

According to a Bloomberg report: Over the past few months, it has become clear to sources inside Google that Mineral has no future.

“We are transitioning our technology into the agricultural ecosystem and maximizing the impact of applying AI to agriculture,” Mineral wrote in a copy of the memo obtained by Bloomberg. “Mineral is no longer owned by Alphabet and our technology is owned by on the inside We will lead agribusiness in areas where we can have the greatest impact.”

As for the company’s future, it had worked extensively with Driscoll’s, which used the technology to forecast berry yields, making it a prime candidate to license the technology, according to anonymous sources within Google. Also Mineral said it is also pursuing further deals with other companies it works with.

“We were really disappointed that Alphabet decided to change course,” Scott Comer, Driscoll’s senior vice president of global research and development, told Bloomberg. “We’ve had a really great partnership with the minerals team, and from our standpoint, they were just getting off the ground, and then all of a sudden, the plans changed.”

Comer did not disclose terms of the deal, but said the license will give Driscoll the right to use the technology in perpetuity.

Photo: Minerals