Google's Parent Company Alphabet Shuts Down Agricultural AI Firm Mineral

TapTechNews July 4th news, according to the announcements on the Mineral official website and Bloomberg reports, Google's parent company, Alphabet, closed its agricultural AI technology enterprise Mineral today.

TapTechNews learned that Mineral was hatched by the X lab that gave birth to projects like Waymo and became an independent subsidiary of Alphabet in early 2023.

The enterprise aims to analyze agricultural data through AI and robotic technologies to achieve precise and clear field management and sustainable increase in food production to address the food supply crisis caused by climate change.

Mineral has developed a field off-road vehicle that can take high-definition crop photos.

By combining the photos collected by this off-road vehicle with external data sets such as weather data, soil information, and satellite images, the Mineral team can clearly understand the overall picture of the field and help farmers make better decisions.

However, Mineral has been facing profitability issues, and the industry it is in is highly competitive with thin profits, difficult to find a suitable business model.

Although Mineral has cooperated with companies such as the berry enterprise Driscoll's for many years, it is still very difficult to convert such transactions into a stable source of income.

After Mineral is closed, Alphabet will provide relevant technical licenses to partners such as Driscoll's to continue to help achieve the goal of sustainable agricultural development.