News

Center for Digital Ag awarded $20 million for artificial intelligence institute

The Center for Digital Agriculture at the University of Illinois has been awarded $20 million to create a new institute focused on artificial intelligence in agriculture.

The National Artificial Intelligence Research Institute granted the award to develop the Artificial intelligence for Future Agriculture Resilience, Management and Sustainability or AIFARMS Institute housed at the Champaign-Urbana campus.

Researchers of the institute will address major challenges in agriculture including labor constraints, animal health, environmental crop resilience and soil health.

U of I Chancellor Robert Jones, a distinguished crop science researcher, says Illinois is proud to be chosen as home for the center and believes this opportunity to solve some of the most critical challenges of this generation will change the world’s agricultural future.

The collaboration of 40 researchers comes from the U of I, University of Chicago, the Danforth Plant Sciences Center in St. Louis, Michigan State University, Tuskegee University and the USDA Ag Research Service. Industry partners from EarthSense, Microsoft Research and IBM Research will also take part.