<\/p>\n
But the Bezos Earth Fund is looking at how \u201cmodern” AI\u2014more efficient AI tools and technology\u2014can be leveraged to protect climate and nature.<\/p>\n
On Thursday, the Earth Fund announced $30 million in grants will be awarded to 15 teams from universities and environmental groups across the world. <\/p>\n
Created with a $10 billion commitment<\/a> by Amazon.com founder Jeff Bezos, the fund has tapped the expertise of Nvidia, Alphabet\u2019s Google, Microsoft subsidiary Microsoft Research, nonprofit AI research institute Ai2, geographic information system (GIS) software developer Esri, and Amazon Web Services, to support groups more adept at understanding the nuances of nature than technology.<\/p>\n \u201cThe more that we support AI to be a force for good, that will ultimately be the mechanism by which we save the planet,” Amen Ra Mashariki, director of AI at the fund, said in an interview.<\/p>\n The grant winners include a team at the New York Botanical Garden that is \u201cautomating plant species identification with computer vision and AI,” a group from the University of Leeds in England that is creating an AI platform that will convert food waste into microbial protein, and a team at the University of Witwatersrand in Johannesburg that is developing a weather forecasting tool kit for Africa using AI, according to the Earth Fund.<\/p>\n The awards mark the second phase of a multiyear $100 million \u201cAI Grand Challenge” that began in April 2024 with $1.2 million awarded in grants of $50,000 each to 24 groups to develop \u201cAI-ready” proposals, says Mashariki, who was a senior principal scientist at Nvidia before joining the Earth Fund.<\/p>\n The winners announced on Thursday were selected from that initial group, and will each receive $2 million to implement projects addressing biodiversity loss, food insecurity<\/a>, and climate change over the next two years.<\/p>\n In an interview, Lauren Bennett, program manager of spatial analysis and data science at Esri, says she was drawn to the challenge because it wasn\u2019t about groups using \u201cAI for the sake of it.” Instead it was \u201ctrying to help conservation organizations do their jobs.”<\/p>\n Many of those vying for grants already use Esri\u2019s software. \u201cThe last thing they are going to do is something irresponsible just to put AI next to it,” she says. The challenge was \u201cinherently set up to avoid all of that because of who they are.”<\/p>\n The Earth Fund\u2019s strategy was to find organizations with projects already under way that could be elevated through the use of AI, rather than creating problems for AI to solve, Mashariki says. That resonated with Esri\u2019s Bennett. \u201cTechnology only matters if it\u2019s used to do something useful or important,” she says.<\/p>\n For instance, the Nature Conservancy has been working for some time to curb illegal and improper ocean fishing practices<\/a>\u2014such as catching endangered or threatened species\u2014by employing electronic monitoring technology.<\/p>\n