INTERVIEW ▶▶▶ David Wallerstein, Tencent
AI must outperform growers’ green fingers
Top executive David Wallerstein from the Chinese technology company, Tencent, has recently discovered horticulture. He believes combining Artificial Intelligence (AI) and food production will make it possible to unlock enormous potential.
BY TON VAN DER SCHEER T
he CEO of Tencent is Ma Huateng, better known as Pony Ma. But David Wallerstein, an American, is also a kind of CEO at the tech giant – Chief Exploration Officer. Official- ly, he is Senior Executive Vice President of the Chinese
company. With a stock exchange value of $523 billion (€ 429 bil- lion), Tencent became one of the top five largest tech companies in the world in autumn last year, behind Apple, Google, Microsoft and Amazon, but just ahead of Facebook. Recently, Mr Waller- stein’s thirst for exploration has lighted upon agriculture and horticulture and in particular on the Autonomous Greenhouse.
“I foresee a big future for distributed agriculture”
Using AI to run a greenhouse autonomously Mr Wallerstein believes that combining AI with a food production system that is as efficient as possible is “a moral imperative and simply good business”. “What we want for humanity is as many solutions as possible for the issue of food security. Our only option is to commit our brightest talents to creating a food production system that requires decreasing levels of input to achieve an ever-increasing output.”
Will Dutch growers become redundant if the Autonomous Greenhouse challenge is a success? “Absolutely not. This competition to find the best autonomous
42 ▶ FUTURE FARMING | 25 May 2018
cultivation system is intended as a learning opportunity for every- one who participates. Learning how the latest computer technol- ogy and AI technology can benefit horticulture and — in practical terms — the entire world population. Complementing the culti- vation techniques that we already have. The only people who need to worry are the ones who want to keep using a particular method simply because they have always done it that way.”
At what stage will this project be deemed a success? “The winning team will have to overcome two hurdles: it must outperform the other teams with a higher production when com- pared to the input, and — ideally — it must also defeat tradition- al cultivation methods. Only then will this definitely be the most convincing business model. And why not? The complexity of decision making in modern horticulture is growing with the amount of data that is becoming available to growers. What I’m hoping the outcome of this project will be is that the competing teams will find new types of patterns and ways of introducing variables to each other.”
Hacking the environment around the plant According to Mr Wallerstein, the teams who are looking for a self-governing and self-learning cultivation system are actually going to be doing is “hacking the environment around the plant.” Well-programmed computers may well be able to analyse and control the bigger picture of which raw materials and resources are required, and what conditions have to be influenced and how, to achieve the best possible cultivation results in a different and more effective way than growers are able to do using their green fingers and intuition. “I foresee a big future for distributed agriculture; in other words, no more increasingly large companies that use a few central locations
PHOTO: KOEN VERHEIJDEN
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