Deep within a rugged fjord in Norway, our team huddled around an enclosed metal racetrack, full of salt water, that stood 4 feet off the ground on stilts. We called the hulking metal contraption our “fish run.” Inside, a salmon circled the 3-meter diameter loop, following its instincts and swimming tirelessly against the current. A stopwatch beeped, and someone yelled “Next fish!” We scooped up the swimmer to weigh it and record its health data before returning it to the school of salmon in the nearby pen. The sun was high in the sky as the team loaded the next fish into the racetrack. We kept working well into the evening, measuring hundreds of fish.
This wasn’t some bizarre fish Olympics. Rather, it was a pivotal moment in the journey of our company,
TidalX AI, which brings artificial intelligence and advanced robotics to aquaculture.
Tidal’s AI systems track the salmon and estimate their biomass. TidalX AI
Tidal emerged from
X, the Moonshot Factory at Alphabet (the parent company of Google), which seeks to create technologies that make a difference to millions if not billions of people. That was the mission that brought a handful of engineers to a fish farm near the Arctic Circle in 2018. Our team was learning how to track visible and behavioral metrics of fish to provide new insights into their health and growth and to measure the environmental impact of fish farms. And aquaculture is just our beginning: We think the modular technologies we’ve developed will prove useful in other ocean-based industries as well.
To get started, we partnered with
Mowi ASA, the largest salmon-aquaculture company in the world, to develop underwater camera and software systems for fish farms. For two weeks in 2018, our small team of Silicon Valley engineers lived and breathed salmon aquaculture, camping out in an Airbnb on a small Norwegian island and commuting to and from the fish farm in a small motorboat. We wanted to learn as much as we could about the problems and the needs of the farmers. The team arrived with laptops, cords, gadgets, and a scrappy camera prototype cobbled together from off-the-shelf parts, which eventually became our window into the underwater world.
Mowi, the world’s largest producer of Atlantic salmon, operates this fish farm in the waters off Norway. Viken Kantarci/AFP/Getty Images
Still, that early trip armed us with our first 1,000 fish data points and a growing library of underwater images (since then, our datasets have grown by a factor of several million). That first data collection allowed us to meticulously train our first AI models to discern patterns invisible to the human eye. The moment of truth arrived two months later, when our demo software successfully estimated fish weights from images alone. It was a breakthrough, a validation of our vision, and yet only the first step on a multiyear journey of technology development.
Weight estimation was the first of a suite of features we would go on to develop, to increase the efficiency of aquaculture farms and help farmers take early action for the benefit of the salmon. Armed with better data about how quickly their fish are growing, farmers can more precisely calculate feeding rates to minimize both wasted food and fish waste, which can have an impact on the surrounding ocean. With our monitoring systems, farmers can catch pest outbreaks before they spread widely and require expensive and intensive treatments.
The Origins of Tidal
The ocean has long fascinated engineers at Alphabet’s Moonshot Factory, which has a mandate to create both novel technologies and profitable companies. X has explored various ocean-based projects over the past decade, including an effort to
turn seawater into fuel, a project exploring whether underwater robots could farm seaweed for carbon sequestration and food, and a test of floating solar panels for clean energy.
In some ways, building technologies for the seas is an obvious choice for engineers who want to make a difference. About two-thirds of our planet is covered in water, and
more than 3 billion people rely on seafood for their protein. The ocean is also critical for climate regulation, life-giving oxygen, and supporting the livelihoods of billions of people. Despite those facts, the United Nations Sustainable Development Goal No. 14, which focuses on “life below water,” is the least funded of all the 17 goals.
One of the most pressing challenges facing humanity is ensuring ongoing access to sustainable and healthy protein sources as the world’s population continues to grow. With the global population projected to reach
9.7 billion by 2050, the demand for seafood will keep rising, and it offers a healthier and lower-carbon alternative to other animal-based proteins such as beef and pork. However, today’s wild-fishing practices are unsustainable, with almost 90 percent of the world’s fisheries now considered either fully exploited (used to their full capacity) or overfished.
Aquaculture offers a promising solution. Fish farming has the potential to alleviate pressure on wild fish stocks, provide a more sustainable way to produce protein, and support the livelihoods of millions. Fish is also a much more efficient protein source than land-based protein. Salmon have a “feed conversion ratio” of roughly one to one; that means they produce about one kilogram of body mass for every kilogram of feed consumed. Cows, on the other hand, require
8 to 12 kilograms of feed to gain a kilogram of mass.
Tidal’s AI platform tracks both fish and food pellets (top) and can then automatically adjust feed rates to limit waste and reduce costs. The system’s sensors can detect sea lice on the salmon (center), which enables farmers to intervene early and track trends. The real-time estimation of biomass (bottom) gives farmers information about both average weight and population distribution, helping them plan the timing of harvests. TidalX AI
However, the aquaculture industry faces growing challenges, including rising water temperatures, changing ocean conditions, and the pressing need for improved efficiency and sustainability. Farmers are accountable for pollution from excess feed and waste, and are grappling with fish diseases that can spread quickly among farmed populations.
At Tidal, our team is developing technology that will both protect the oceans and address global food-security challenges. We’ve visited aquaculture farms in Norway, Japan, and many other countries to test our technology, which we hope will transform aquaculture practices and serve as a beneficial force for fish, people, and the planet.
The Data Behind AI for Aquaculture
Salmon aquaculture is the most technologically advanced sector within the ocean farming industry, so that’s where we began. Atlantic salmon are a popular seafood, with a global market of
nearly US $20 billion in 2023. That year, 2.87 million tonnes of salmon were farmed in the Atlantic Ocean; globally, farmed salmon accounts for nearly three-quarters of all salmon sold.
Our partnership with Mowi combined their deep aquaculture knowledge with our expertise in AI, underwater robotics, and data science. Our initial goal was to estimate biomass, a critical task in fish farming that involves accurately assessing the weight and distribution of fish within a pen in real time. Mastering this task established a baseline for improvement, because better measurements can unlock better management.
Tidal’s imaging platform, which includes lights, multiple cameras, and other sensors, moves through the fish pen to gather data. TidalX AI
We quickly realized that reliable underwater computer-vision models didn’t exist, even from cutting-edge AI. State-of-the-art computer-vision models weren’t trained on underwater images and often misidentified salmon, sometimes with comic results—one model confidently classified a fish as an umbrella. In addition, we had to estimate the average weight of up to 200,000 salmon within a pen, but the reference data available—based on weekly manual sampling by farmers of just 20 to 30 salmon—didn’t represent the variability across the population. We had internalized the old computing adage “garbage in, garbage out,” and so we realized that our model’s performance would be only as good as the quality and quantity of the data we used to train it. Developing models for Mowi’s desired accuracy required a drastically larger dataset.
We therefore set out to create a high-quality dataset of images from marine pens. In our earliest experiments on estimating fish weight from images, we had worked with realistic-looking rubber fish in our own lab. But the need for better data sent us to Norway in 2018 to collect footage. First, we tried taking photos of individual fish in small enclosures, but this method proved inefficient because the fish didn’t reliably swim in front of our camera.
That’s when we designed our fish-run racetrack to capture images of individual fish from all angles. We then paired this footage with corresponding weight and health measurements to train our models. A second breakthrough came when we got access to data from the fish farms’ harvests, when every fish is individually weighed. That addition expanded our dataset a thousandfold and improved our model performance. Soon we had a model capable of making highly precise and accurate estimates of fish weight distributions for the entire population within a given enclosure.
Crafting Resilient Hardware for an Unforgiving Ocean
As we were building a precise and accurate AI model, we were simultaneously creating a comprehensive hardware package. The system included underwater cameras, an autonomous winch to move the cameras within the pen, and an integrated software platform.
Tidal’s autonomous winch systems move the cameras on horizontal and vertical axes within the fish pen. TidalX AI
Our initial field experiments had taught us the stark reality of operating technology in extreme environmental conditions, including freezing temperatures, high waves, and strong currents. To meet this challenge, we spent several years putting the Tidal technology through rigorous testing: We simulated extreme conditions, pushed the equipment to its breaking point, and even used standards typically reserved for military gear. We tested how well it worked under pressures intense enough to implode most electronics. Once satisfied with the lab results, we tested our technology on farms above the Arctic Circle.
The result is a remarkably resilient system that features highly responsive top, stereo, and bottom cameras, with efficient lighting that minimizes stress on the fish. The smart winch moves the camera autonomously through the pen around the clock on horizontal and vertical axes, collecting tens of thousands of fish observations daily. The chief operating officer of Mowi Farming Norway,
Oyvind Oaland, called our commercial product “the most advanced sensing and analysis platform in aquaculture, and undoubtedly the one with the greatest potential.”
The Tidal system today provides farmers with real-time data on fish growth, health, and feeding, enabling them to make data-driven decisions to optimize their operations. One of our key innovations was the development and integration of the industry’s first AI-powered autonomous feeding system. By feeding fish just the amount that they need to grow, the system minimizes wasted food and fish excrement, therefore improving fish farms’ environmental impact. Merging our autonomous feeding system with our camera platform meant that farmers could save on cost and clutter by deploying a single all-in-one system in their pens.
Developing the autonomous feeding system presented new challenges—not all of them technical. We initially aimed for an ideal feeding strategy based on the myriad factors influencing fish appetite, which would work seamlessly for every user straight out of the box. But we faced resistance from farmers when the strategy differed from their feeding policies, which were often based on decades of experience.
Tidal’s AI systems identify food pellets. TidalX AI
This response forced us to rethink our approach and pivot from a one-size-fits-all solution to a modular system that farmers could customize
. This allowed them to adjust the system to their specific feeding preferences first, building trust and acceptance. Farmers could initially set their preferred maximum and minimum feed rates and their tolerance for feed fall-through; over time, as they began to trust the technology more, they could let it run more autonomously. Once deployed within a pen, the system gathers data on fish behavior and how many feed pellets fall through the net, which improves the system’s estimate of fish appetite. These ongoing revisions not only improve feeding efficiency—thus optimizing growth, reducing waste, and minimizing environmental impact—but also build confidence among farmers.
Tidal’s Impact on Sustainable Aquaculture
Tidal’s technology has demonstrated multiple benefits. With the automated feed system, farmers are improving production efficiency, reducing costs, and reducing environmental impact. Our software can also detect health issues early on, such as sea-lice infestations and wounds, allowing farmers to promptly intervene with more-targeted treatments. When farmers have accurate biomass and fish welfare estimates, they can optimize the timing of harvests and minimize the risk that the harvested fish will be in poor health or too small to fetch a good market price. By integrating AI into every aspect of its system, we have created a powerful tool that enables farmers to make better-informed and sustainable decisions.
The platform approach also fosters collaboration between technology experts and aquaculture professionals. We’re currently working with farmers and fish-health experts on new applications of machine learning, such as fish-behavior detection and ocean-simulation modeling. That modeling can help farmers predict and respond to serious challenges, such as harmful algal blooms caused by nutrient pollution and warming water temperatures.
To date, we have installed systems in more than 700 pens around the globe, collected over 30 billion data points, processed 1.5 petabytes of video footage, and monitored over 50 million fish throughout their growth cycle. Thanks to years of research and development, commercial validation, and scaling, our company has now embarked on its next phase. In July 2024, Tidal graduated from Alphabet’s X and launched as an independent company, with investors including U.S. and Norwegian venture-capital firms and Alphabet.
Tidal’s journey from a moon shot idea to a commercially viable company is just the start of what we hope to accomplish. With never-ending challenges facing our planet, leveraging cutting-edge technology to survive and thrive in a quickly adapting world will be more critical than ever before. Aquaculture is Tidal’s first step, but there is so much potential within the ocean that can be unlocked to support a sustainable future with economic and food security.
We’re proud that our technology is already making salmon production more sustainable and efficient, thus contributing to the health of our oceans and the growing global population that depends upon seafood for protein.
Tidal’s underwater perception technology has applications far beyond aquaculture, offering transformative potential across ocean-based industries, collectively referred to as the “blue economy.” While our roots are in “blue food,” our tools can be adapted for “blue energy” by monitoring undersea infrastructure like offshore wind farms, “blue transportation” by improving ocean simulations for more-efficient shipping routes, and “blue carbon” by mapping and quantifying the carbon storage capacity of marine ecosystems such as sea grasses.
For example, we have already demonstrated that we can adapt our salmon biomass-estimation models to create detailed three-dimensional maps of sea-grass beds in eastern Indonesia, enabling us to estimate the amount of carbon stored below the water’s surface. We’re aiming to address a critical knowledge gap: Scientists have limited data on how much carbon sea-grass ecosystems can sequester, which undermines the credibility of marine-based carbon credit markets. Adapting our technology could advance scientific understanding and drive investment in protecting and conserving these vital ocean habitats.
What started with fish swimming through a racetrack on one small Norwegian fish farm may become a suite of technologies that help humanity protect and make the most of our ocean resources. With its robust, AI-powered systems designed to withstand the harshest oceanic conditions, Tidal is well equipped to revolutionize the blue economy, no matter how rough the seas get.
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