How John Deere’s new AI lab is designing farm equipment for a more sustainable future

Tuesday, 19 September, 2017
Fast Company, Adele Peters
John Deere is focused on how to use artificial intelligence to make farming equipment that can meet modern challenges.

On a block in San Francisco’s SoMa district, near LinkedIn’s headquarters and dozens of startups, a 180-year-old company best-known for making tractors has a gleaming new Silicon Valley office. But inside, instead of building the latest app, John Deere is focused on how to use artificial intelligence to make farming equipment that can meet modern sustainability and food production challenges.

John Deere Labs, which opened its doors in the spring, made its first major deal on September 6. The company spent $305 million to acquire Blue River Technology, a startup with computer vision and machine learning technology that can identify weeds - making it possible to spray herbicides only where they’re needed. The technology reduces chemical use by about 95%, while also improving yield.

It’s one step in John Deere’s embrace of “precision agriculture,” the use of technology to target crops and soil for optimum productivity and health. The manufacturer began incorporating aspects of precision agriculture more than two decades ago, building self-driving technology into tractors long before it started showing up in cars. But advances in AI mean that farm equipment can change more significantly now.

“What Blue River Technology allows us to do is move to the plant level, and start managing at that plant level,” says Alex Purdy, director of John Deere Labs. “That’s going to have transformative power in agriculture both in terms of yield but also in terms of cost for growers.”

Blue River knew that it had developed the most advanced technology of its kind in the industry, but chose to work with John Deere to reach the next step. “It was time to scale,” says Willy Pell, director of new technology at Blue River Technology. “And that means making lots and lots and lots of big pieces of metal. It’s not just buying new servers.” Rather than developing its own brand, the startup also realized that it made sense to partner with a company that farmers already trusted (though John Deere, notably, has also been criticized in recent years for selling farmers tech-laden tractors that it won’t let them fix on their own).

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