Tidal’s Next Wave

Tidal, our moonshot for ocean health and blue food, is graduating from X today to become an independent company. Tidal is pioneering underwater AI to make ocean-based industries like aquaculture more sustainable. The team has raised a round of outside funding led by Perry Creek Capital, and will focus on continuing to commercialize the aquaculture platform they developed at X over the past six years.

The ocean makes up more than 70 percent of the Earth, regulates our climate, and provides oxygen, food, and livelihoods for billions of people. The ocean economy is worth at least $2.5 trillion per year. Yet despite its critical role to the health of our planet and population, the ocean remains one of the least understood and explored regions on the globe.

_{Tidal’s aquaculture AI prototypes.}

In part because it is so unknown, the ocean has been a source of fascination for us at X. Over the past decade we’ve conducted several marine experiments focused on sustainability. We ran a project to turn seawater into fuel, tested floating solar panels to produce green energy, and explored how underwater robots might farm seaweed for food and carbon sequestration. Learnings from all of these projects informed our approach to Tidal, which set out to apply the latest underwater perception and compute technology to advance ocean understanding and support global food security.

With the global population estimated to grow to 9.7 billion by 2050 and ocean-based food production an increasingly essential component of feeding our planet, Tidal began by exploring ways to make aquaculture more sustainable. In partnership with industry leaders like Mowi, the largest producer of Atlantic salmon in the world, Tidal developed an award winning system of autonomous cameras, sensors, and advanced AI. The system is designed to capture real-time data about fish growth, health, and feeding behavior, and provides critical automation to an industry that is often conducted in remote ocean environments.

_{An early prototype of Tidal’s underwater perception rig.}

_{Tidal’s underwater perception rig today. }

Before they could apply machine learning and intelligence to the underwater world, the Tidal team first had to create new datasets on fish and ocean ecosystems. They started with a set of realistic-looking rubber fish which they used to build the computer vision models needed to recognize fish underwater. The next stage was to build a “fish run” fitted with cameras where real fish could swim while the team learned about all aspects of fish appearance and behavior.

_{Watch the video above to see the X team building a prototype "fish run" to create new datasets about fish and ocean ecosystems.}

Soon the team was heading up to the Arctic Circle to test these insights in Mowi’s aquaculture pens, which each hold up to 200,000 fish. Together they learned new ways to improve the overall health of the stock, and reduce the pollution associated with overfeeding.

_{The Tidal team working with our partners, Mowi, in Norway.}

Today, Tidal has deployed 230 systems across Mowi farms in Norway, watching over the health and feeding of millions of fish each day, and has expanded to serve a global customer base. The Tidal platform measures and detects fish growth and health, monitors environmental factors like temperature and oxygen levels over time, and interprets fish behaviors to automate feeding and minimize waste. In an industry where the largest environmental and economic cost is feed, Tidal empowers fish farmers around the world to make more sustainable decisions.

Now that Tidal is well on the way to commercializing its technology, it’s graduating to become an independent company, with backing from financial and strategic partners who share our vision. Like 280 Earth, a direct air capture project that began at X and is now a standalone business, Tidal is part of a new model at X which provides a path for more of our projects to spin out with support from market-based capital. We’re excited to launch climate-based businesses like Tidal and 280 Earth at a time when the world needs these moonshots more than ever.

Congratulations to the Tidal team. This is just the beginning!