After Ukraine launched a sudden drone assault on Russian installations, it brought new attention to the U.S.' own vulnerabilities, regardless of which side the U.S. stood on Kyiv's attack. In recent years, Chinese Communist Party-linked entities have commercially targeted land around the U.S., including in the vicinity of sensitive installations like the Grand Forks Air Force Base in North Dakota. The Fufeng Group's 300-acre farmland purchase in 2021 first raised the collective antennae of Congress to such under-the-radar transactions – and even Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis swiftly banned them in his state as a result, among other efforts around the country. On Tuesday, North Dakota's senators agreed that the U.S. must remain vigilant for any malign activity, whether it be from relatively novel drone assaults to potential espionage through real estate transactions. An explosion of a drone is seen in the sky over the city during a Russian drone strike, amid Russia's attack on Ukraine, in Kyiv, Ukraine, on April 24, 2025.

Remote sensing (RS) techniques, by enabling non-contact acquisition of extensive ground observations, have become a valuable tool for corn yield prediction. Traditional process-based (PB) models are limited by fixed input features and struggle to incorporate large volumes of RS data. In contrast, machine learning (ML) models are often criticized for being ``black boxes'' with limited interpretability. To address these limitations, we used Knowledge-Guided Machine Learning (KGML), which combined the strengths of both approaches and fully used RS data. However, previous KGML methods overlooked the crucial role of soil moisture in plant growth. To bridge this gap, we proposed the Knowledge-Guided Machine Learning with Soil Moisture (KGML-SM) framework, using soil moisture as an intermediate variable to emphasize its key role in plant development. Additionally, based on the prior knowledge that the model may overestimate under drought conditions, we designed a drought-aware loss function that penalizes predicted yield in drought-affected areas. Our experiments showed that the KGML-SM model outperformed other ML models. Finally, we explored the relationships between drought, soil moisture, and corn yield prediction, assessing the importance of various features and analyzing how soil moisture impacts corn yield predictions across different regions and time periods.

Currently in the petroleum industry, operators often flare the produced gas instead of commodifying it. The flaring magnitudes are large in some states, which constitute problems with energy waste and CO2 emissions. In North Dakota, operators are required to estimate and report the volume flared. The questions are, how good is the quality of this reporting, and what insights can be drawn from it? Apart from the company-reported statistics, which are available from the North Dakota Industrial Commission (NDIC), flared volumes can be estimated via satellite remote sensing, serving as an unbiased benchmark. Since interpretation of the Landsat 8 imagery is hindered by artifacts due to glow, the estimated volumes based on the Visible Infrared Imaging Radiometer Suite (VIIRS) are used. Reverse geocoding is performed for comparing and contrasting the NDIC and VIIRS data at different levels, such as county and oilfield. With all the data gathered and preprocessed, Bayesian learning implemented by MCMC methods is performed to address three problems: county level model development, flaring time series analytics, and distribution estimation. First, there is heterogeneity among the different counties, in the associations between the NDIC and VIIRS volumes. In light of such, models are developed for each county by exploiting hierarchical models. Second, the flaring time series, albeit noisy, contains information regarding trends and patterns, which provide some insights into operator approaches. Gaussian processes are found to be effective in many different pattern recognition scenarios. Third, distributional insights are obtained through unsupervised learning. The negative binomial and GMMs are found to effectively describe the oilfield flare count and flared volume distributions, respectively. Finally, a nearest-neighbor-based approach for operator level monitoring and analytics is introduced.

BlueChip Financial (BCF) is looking for a qualified Data Engineer who loves building data ETL pipelines to help drive the direction of new and exciting greenfield projects that fuel our data analyst and data scientist teams. BCF is headquartered in Belcourt, North Dakota with a satellite office in Minneapolis, Minnesota and Atlanta, GA. This position can be located at either office, although travel to other offices will be required. Under normal (post-pandemic) circumstances, travel will also be required to attend industry conferences and may also be required for vendor management, both of which may vary at times. BlueChip Financial (d/b/a Spotloan.com) is a leading online direct lender founded in 2012 that utilizes advanced underwriting technology to provide short-term loans to Americans in need.

This previous Thursday noticed Vantis, North Dakota's statewide unmanned plane methods (UAS) system, formally rejoice the grand opening of its Mission and Community Operations Middle (MNOC) at GrandSky Enterprise and Aviation Park. The MNOC acts as Vantis' command middle and is crucial to the coordination of beyond-visual-line-of-sight (BVLOS) flight operations. "That is the center of Vantis," mentioned Trevor Woods, govt director of the Northern Plains UAS Check Website (NPUASTS), which administers Vantis. "From this location, we have now the know-how to observe and management the distant infrastructure, enabling all the operation. The MNOC will likely be integral to coordinating protected, repeatable BVLOS flights throughout North Dakota, and scalable to bigger areas."

North Dakota is not often one of the states in the United States that is considered to be foremost for technology adoption, but the state's thought leadership in a wide range of technology areas shouldn't be underestimated. After all, the current Governor of North Dakota, Doug Burgum, was not only president of Billion-dollar tech company Great Plains, which was acquired by Microsoft, but also he was the head of Microsoft Business Solutions, chairman of the board for Atlassian, and on the board of SuccessFactors, and co-founder of Arthur Ventures. It should come as little surprise, then, that North Dakota has been very forward thinking in their use of data, automation, and AI. In a recent AI in Government event North Dakota's Chief Data Officer Dorman Bazzell shared how states are approaching technologies such as automation and advanced data analytics, as well as how AI plays an increasing role in local government. He provides more detail in a recent interview on the AI Today podcast and he shares insights in this follow up interview here on Forbes.

BISMARCK, NORTH DAKOTA – U.S. Secretary of Transportation Elaine Chao on Wednesday announced 10 sites for a test program aimed at increasing the use of unmanned aircraft for projects that range from monitoring crops and oil pipelines in North Dakota to applying mosquito-killing treatments in Florida and package deliveries in Tennessee. President Donald Trump signed a directive last year to establish the "innovation zones" that allow exemptions to some drone regulations, such as flying over people, nighttime flights and flights where the aircraft can't be seen by the operator. States, communities and tribes selected to participate would devise their own trial programs in partnership with government and industry drone users. "Data gathered from these pilot projects will form the basis of a new regulatory framework to safely integrate drones into our national airspace," Chao said in a statement. Chao, who called the rapidly developing drone industry the biggest development since the jet age, said about 150 applications were received.

Elbit wants to lease hanger space for the large drone it flies, and install equipment it needs to fly it. The FAA requires a chase plane to provide visual supervision when the drone flies. Lease costs are still being negotiated.

In 2015, the Federal Aviation Administration will admit military, private, and commercial drones into U.S. airspace. The move could dramatically increase the number of unmanned aircraft shooting through the skies, and with it, the value of the domestic drone economy. The Association of Unmanned Vehicle Systems International estimates that the new regulations will result in "100,000 jobs created and economic impact of $82 billion" by 2025. For several cities and states across the country, that means one thing: ka-ching. Take North Dakota, where law enforcement, local government, federal agencies, and universities have already laid the groundwork for the coming drone-volution.

Trucks hauling cargo from Canada through the United States to Mexico and back navigate border crossings without the need for passports, visas or even a driver to steer them. It's an idea that's not too far-fetched, says a group that met in North Dakota last week. Marlo Anderson with the Central North American Trade Corridor Association says members are working to turn the idea into reality. The plan is for an autonomous vehicle corridor along Route 83, which runs north-south through Texas, Oklahoma, Kansas, Nebraska, South Dakota and North Dakota. The road then continues into Manitoba.