Nueva Pescanova Group and Microsoft Renew Alliance to Digitize Aquaculture with AI and IoT

He Nueva Pescanova Group and Microsoft he renewed the alliance started in 2021 to continue advancing in the digitization of crops through the use of technologies of Inteligencia Artificial, Internet of Things y Big Data. The joint collaboration developed over the last two years has led to the creation of the first smart vannamei prawn aquaculture farm (Smart Farm) and, with this new agreement, both companies will continue to promote the efficiency and sustainability of these crops.

The expansion of the alliance has been formalized for a act held at the Microsoft offices in Spain attended by Alberto Granados, president of Microsoft Spain, José María Benavent, president of the Nueva Pescanova Group, and Ignacio González, CEO of the Nueva Pescanova Group, among others.

José María Benavent, president of the Nueva Pescanova Group, He stated: “Throughout this time collaborating together, we have not only managed to digitize our crops to make them more efficient and sustainable, but we have also created a new smart farm concept that represents a world benchmark. The synergies that we have established with our technological partner have led us to extend this alliance to continue designing together what will be the aquaculture of the future”.

For his part, Alberto Granados, President of Microsoft España, has highlighted: “The project with Nueva Pescanova is being very relevant and inspiring because the application of Artificial Intelligence has had a clear positive impact both at a productive and environmental level in vannamei shrimp farms. It is important to continue focusing on responsible AI and now even more, if possible, with the implementation of generative AI that opens up infinite new opportunities”.

An agreement until 2024

The project of aquaculture 4.0 started at the Group’s sustainable shrimp farming farms in Ecuador, where 688 pools were digitized with nearly 870 sensors, 1,300 hydrophones and 2,500 feeders to have better information on the activity and control 100% of the processes automatically and in real time through the solution Smart Farm, that incorporates up to 47 predictive models based on Artificial Intelligence. In this sense, environmental and consumption patterns were determined so that the automatic feeding stations deposit the ideal food ration in the water based on real demand, which has maximized the well-being of the species and productivity. As a result, the Nueva Pescanova Group has improved its production in Ecuadorincreasing the accuracy of your crop predictions by 90-95% and Reduced response times to incidents by up to 80%.

José María Benavent: “Throughout this time collaborating together, we have not only managed to digitize our crops to make them more efficient and sustainable, but we have also created a new smart farm concept that represents a world benchmark”

Likewise, and after the success achieved in Ecuador, where more than 100 users use the Smart Farm solution on a recurring basis, the company has already made progress in the implementation of the 4.0 aquaculture project in its farms. Nicaragua and Guatemalawhich will include training another 150 workers in new digital skills and will help attract highly-qualified talent, such as industrial and computer engineers, in these countries where the digital talent gap is high.

The alliance until 2024 is intended to improve the efficiency and sustainability of these crops, facilitate business predictability, guarantee food traceability, and improve animal health and welfare, all this by extending the capabilities of Artificial Intelligence, Internet of Things and Big Data to other areas of the value chain. In this sense, both companies have set themselves the challenge of building the foundations of hyperconnected industry model (digital factory) in the group for this year and under the objective of developing a first project at its plant in Ecuador during 2024.

This new agreement covers three main objectives. The first of these is to improve Artificial Intelligence models to make the most of the data that is collected to increase efficiency and production capacity. The second objective is focused on the implementation of the principles of the intelligent farm (Smart Farm) at all levels, to improve processes in the organization. Finally, both companies will work to optimize quality prediction using Artificial Intelligence. In this sense, two pilot lines have already been started to create predictive models of quality of biomass in the plant, as well as detection of problems using images, which will allow increasing the production and quality of the harvests.