Google's X creates Heritable Agriculture, a startup utilizing artificial intelligence to enhance crop productivity.

Google’s X “moonshot factory” recently introduced its latest graduate. Heritable Agriculture is a data- and machine learning-driven startup with the goal of enhancing crop growth. Plants, as stated by the firm in a post published on Tuesday, are highly efficient and impressive systems. They are solar powered, carbon negative, self-assembling machines that thrive on sunlight and water. Despite this, agriculture places a significant burden on the planet and its resources, contributing to approximately 25% of anthropogenic greenhouse emissions and being the largest consumer of groundwater while causing soil erosion and water pollution through chemicals like pesticides and fertilizers.

### Analyzing Data for Sustainable Agriculture
The newly independent startup aims to address these global challenges by utilizing Google’s expertise in analyzing extensive datasets through artificial intelligence and machine learning. Data collection is the straightforward part, while transforming this data into actionable instructions for growers to modernize the 12,000-year-old industry poses the real challenge. Heritable Architecture was founded by Brad Zamft, a physics PhD who previously worked at the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and a venture-backed startup called TL Biolabs before joining Google X and leading the project that became Heritable.

### Advancing Crop Production with Technology
Using machine learning, Heritable examines plant genomes to identify combinations that could enhance crop production. Zamft envisions breeding climate-friendly traits into crops for increased yields, reduced water requirements, and higher carbon storage capacity in roots and soil. The company’s models were tested on thousands of plants grown in specialized chambers at X’s Bay Area headquarters and in field sites in California, Nebraska, and Wisconsin.

### Future Focus on Commercialization
While CRISPR-based gene editing may play a role in making plants “programmable” in the future, Heritable currently focuses on traditional breeding methods rather than genetic modification. The immediate priority is to commercialize the technology, with a seed round already secured from investors like FTW Ventures, Mythos Ventures, and SVG Ventures, including Google as an equity investor. The team is working on bringing the technology to market, with plans for potential partnerships and timelines undisclosed as of now.