Big Data and AI are poised to transform Canada's natural-resources sector

Tyler Hamilton works with cleantech companies from across Canada as an adviser with the non-profit MaRS Discovery District in Toronto. "We're ingesting hundreds of terabytes of satellite imagery data, and we've got thousands of sensors in fields, all providing us information on a per-second, per-minute or daily basis," says Kevin Grant, the company's chief technology officer. That information, he says, is gathered from thousands of farms across Canada, the United States and overseas, and includes everything from soil and weather conditions to the performance of farm equipment and evidence of pests and rot. Sometimes it comes from Farmers Edge's own weather stations and in-field sensors; sometimes from third-party databases. The end game is to increase crop yield and lower costs by helping farmers make better decisions about when and exactly where to plant, irrigate, fertilize and harvest, and by allowing for the pro-active maintenance of equipment.