USDA Unveils Initiative to Develop AI Solutions to Accelerate Crop Innovation

The Department of Agriculture (USDA) announced a call to universities and other stakeholders to develop new artificial intelligence (AI) tools that can more quickly process USDA plant germplasm. This “Agricultural National Science & Technology Challenge” will ask innovators to devise solutions that amalgamate different types of information for scientists to more quickly identify key plant and seed traits. The initiative will formally begin in the coming months. 

USDA will execute this challenge as part of its Agriculture Advanced Research and Development Authority (AGARDA) and as a component of the Genesis Mission, a White House-led, national effort to leverage AI to accelerate scientific discovery. To learn more about the initiative, click here.