NVIDIA's Inception climate AI startups

For the 50th anniversary of Earth Day, Isha Salin wrote about three startups using deep learning for environmental monitoring, which are all part of NVIDIA’s Inception program for startups. Here’s what they do.

Orbital Insight maps deforestation to aid the Global Forest Watch, similar to the work being done by and 20tree.ai (DT #25) and David Dao’s lab at ETH Zurich (DT #28):

The tool can also help companies assess the risk of deforestation in their supply chains. Commodities like palm oil have driven widespread deforestation in Southeast Asia, leading several producers to pledge to achieve zero net deforestation in their supply chains this year.

3vGeomatics monitors the thawing of permafrost on the Canadian Arctic in a project for the Canadian Space Agency. Why it matters:

As much as 70 percent of permafrost could melt by 2100, releasing massive amounts of carbon into the atmosphere. Climate change-induced permafrost thaw also causes landslides and erosion that threaten communities and critical infrastructure.

Azevea is monitoring construction around oil and gas pipelines to detect construction activities that may damage the pipes and cause leaks:

The U.S. oil and gas industry leaks an estimated 13 million metric tons of methane into the atmosphere each year — much of which is preventable. One of the leading sources is excavation damage caused by third parties, unaware that they’re digging over a natural gas pipeline.

I’m always a bit hesitant to cover ML startups that work with oil and gas companies, but I think in this case their work is a net benefit. For details about the GPU tech being used by all these projects, see Salin’s full post.