Monsanto looks into artificial intelligence technology with new research partnership – STLtoday.com

The process of developing and getting new crop protection technologies to market can stretch for more than a decade and require hundreds of millions of dollars. To home in on new ones in more timely and efficient ways, Monsanto is turning to artificial intelligence through a collaborative research agreement announced Wednesday.

The biotech giant's partnership with Atomwise, a San Francisco-based company that uses artificial intelligence to accelerate the discovery and development of medicines, will look for crop science applications of the company's AtomNet technology, which a press release said uses "algorithms and supercomputers to analyze millions of molecules for potential crop protection products."

"Instead of the traditional trial-and-error and process of elimination to analyze tens of thousands of molecules, the AtomNet technology aims to streamline the initial phase of discovery by analyzing how different molecules interact with one another," the release stated. "The software teaches itself about molecular interactions by identifying patterns, similar to how artificial intelligence learns to recognize images."

The new partnership marks Atomwise's first involvement with a company in the agriculture industry.

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Monsanto looks into artificial intelligence technology with new research partnership - STLtoday.com