Accenture, Intel Create AI-Powered Solution To Save Coral Reefs

Accenture and Intel had partnered with Philippines-based Sulubaaï Environmental Foundation to develop a new AI-powered solution to monitor and analyse the resilience of coral reefs. As part of Project: CORaiL - started in 2019 - it demonstrated how AI and edge computing can be used to help restore coral reefs.

The solution has collected about 40,000 images, which have been used to gauge the health of the reef in real-time.

“AI can solve some of society’s most vexing problems,” said a representative from Accenture. “Our ecosystem of partners for this project proves that strength in numbers can positively impact the environment,” he adds.

Accenture & Intel’s Project: CORaiL

As part of the project, a critical step is to identify the number and variety of fish around a reef. This information will provide a window into the overall health of the reef. Traditionally, human divers manually capture footage to monitor the reef. But this time-intensive process can be done in a more effective way.

A team from Accenture, Intel and Sulubaaï implemented an artificial, concrete reef - called Sulu-Reef Prosthesis (SRP) - to provide support for unstable coral fragments under the water. They then placed smart underwater video cameras, equipped with the Accenture Applied Intelligence Video Analytics Services Platform (VASP) to detect and take pictures of fish.

Powered by Intel Xeon, Intel FPGA Programmable Acceleration Cards and Intel Movidius VPU, VASP uses AI to count and classify marine life. This data is then sent to a dashboard that provides analytics to researchers. This will enable them to make data-driven decisions to help protect coral reefs.