Project of Google parent’s Moonshot Factory partnering with Cognizant on new AI fish monitoring tech

Tidal, a team at X – a project of Google’s parent company Alphabet also called The Moonshot Factory – and information technology services company Cognizant Ocean are teaming up to expand the use of AI in aquaculture operations.

Tidal was launched by Google to work on ways to use technology to protect the ocean, with an initial focus on technologies that gave greater visibility on what is happening underwater. After four years of developing that tech, Tidal announced it is sharing what it has learned with Cognizant – which has software and systems integration expertise – to use Tidal’s data for improving the efficiency and sustainability of aquaculture operations.

Tidal Project Lead Neil Davé, in a blog post, said that the project has already worked with Norwegian salmon producer Mowi to research how its new camera, sensing, and AI-powered technologies could give the company a clearer picture of the salmon in its net pens.

“For example, they can now detect and interpret fish behaviors and environmental factors, like temperature and oxygen levels, and track changes over time,” Davé said. “These insights have helped them make better decisions about fish welfare, health, and feeding.”

The partnership with Cognizant, according to Tidal, will allow the company to make the technology more widely available to the aquaculture industry – rather than limiting the technology to select pilot partners that were assisting with research.

“Our new collaboration with Cognizant means we can now bring the insights and learning from our work around the world to a much greater number of ocean-based businesses,” Davé said. “Tidal’s long-term goal is to reduce the barriers to protecting the ocean and create a set of tools that can be used across a variety of industries – from marine biologists studying animal and plant life to logistics experts using wave simulation to chart carbon efficient shipping routes.”

Tidal added that its current AI was trained on over 8 billion underwater observations of fish behavior across 900 terabytes of operational video. Cognizant said it can help companies integrate that AI into enterprise systems, linking data across businesses.

"With digital technology ocean industries can not only become more resilient and future-proof in the face of a more unpredictable and rapidly changing environment, but they can help make oceans healthier and address humanity's biggest problems – from food production to renewable energy to climate change," Cognizant Ocean Global Head Stig Martin Fiskå said. "We welcome this important collaboration with Tidal to work together with clients to support their holistic, systems-level change."  

Photo courtesy of Tidal