Microsoft Call on Researchers to Use AI to Save Earth's Oceans

AI for Earth, a program that offers access to Microsoft's artificial intelligence (AI) technologies and cloud resources to researchers and organizations that are addressing environmental challenges, is now turning its attention to the world's oceans. When AI for Earth was first announced in July, its focus was on agriculture, biodiversity, climate change and water scarcity. Now a different sort of water management, that of the oceans, is in the company's crosshairs. The new AI for Earth European Union Oceans Award provides cloud computing resources to researchers focused on oceans and problems affecting them, which may include pollution, rising sea levels and increasing ocean acidity. "Covering nearly 70 percent of the Earth's surface, oceans play an outsized role in the health of our planet," said Lucas Joppa, chief environmental scientist at Microsoft, in an Oct. 6 announcement. "They generate much of the oxygen we breathe, provide food and livelihoods for billions of people around the world, and support a vast and incredible array of species, many of which have not yet been discovered or described."