INTELLIGENT BRANDS // Software for Business
Microsoft and National
Geographic form
AI partnership
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M
icrosoft and National Geographic
have announced a new partnership
to advance scientific exploration
and research on critical environmental
challenges with the power of Artificial
Intelligence (AI). The newly created
US$1 million AI for Earth Innovation Grant
programme will provide award recipients
with financial support, access to Microsoft
cloud and AI tools, inclusion in the National
Geographic Explorer community and
affiliation with National Geographic Labs, an
initiative launched by National Geographic
to accelerate transformative change and
exponential solutions to the world’s biggest
challenges by harnessing data, technology
and innovation.
“National Geographic is synonymous with
science and exploration, and in Microsoft
we found a partner that is well-positioned
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to accelerate the pace of scientific research
and new solutions to protect our natural
world,” said Jonathan Baillie, Chief Scientist
and Executive Vice President, Science and
Exploration at the National Geographic
Society. “With the announcement, we
will enable outstanding explorers seeking
solutions for a sustainable future with the
cloud and AI technologies that can quickly
improve the speed, scope and scale of their
work as well as support National Geographic
Labs’ activities around technology and
innovation for a planet in balance.”
“Microsoft is constantly exploring the
boundaries of what technology can do for
people and for the world,” said Lucas Joppa,
Chief Environmental Scientist at Microsoft.
“We believe that humans and computers,
working together through AI, can change
the way that society monitors, models
and manages Earth’s natural systems. We
believe this because we’ve seen it – we’re
constantly amazed by the advances our AI
for Earth collaborators have made over the
past months. Scaling this through National
Geographic’s global network will create a
whole new generation of explorers who use
AI to create a more sustainable future for
the planet and everyone on it.”
The US$1 million AI for Earth Innovation
Grant programme will provide financial
support to between five and 15 novel
projects that use AI to advance conservation
research towards a more sustainable future.
The grants will support the creation and
deployment of open-sourced trained models
and algorithms that will be made broadly
available to other environmental researchers,
which offers greater potential to provide
exponential impact. n
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