Space artificial intelligence (AI) comprehensive solution corporations TelePIX said on the 10th that it was the only domestic corporations selected for the first cohort of Google DeepMind's Asia-Pacific (APAC) accelerator program "AI for the Planet."
"AI for the Planet" is a program that supports startups, research teams, and Nonprofit Institutions (NPI) working to solve climate and environmental issues using AI. The selected organizations will receive about three months of technical mentoring from Google researchers and experts, starting with a boot camp in Singapore.
About 680 corporations and institutions in the APAC region applied to the program, and 16 were finally selected. TelePIX was included in the "nature protection and climate resilience enhancement" category.
TelePIX will use the program to advance its global Mangrove monitoring technology that leverages satellite data and AI. Mangroves are a major storage source of blue carbon, which marine and coastal ecosystems absorb and store, and they not only absorb carbon but also reduce coastal erosion and storm surges. Although Mangrove degradation continues due to illegal logging, conversion to aquaculture, and coastal development, global-scale maps are mostly updated annually, making it hard to quickly spot changes.
TelePIX developed an AI model and platform that automatically analyze Mangrove changes whenever new satellite imagery is acquired. To compensate for varying observation conditions caused by tides, water turbidity, haze, and seasonal changes, it also used Google DeepMind's geospatial AI model "AlphaEarth Foundations."
According to the company, validation using its own global dataset showed that, even for satellite imagery from countries not included in training, the intersection over union (IoU) between AI-detected areas and actual areas and the F1 score for precision-recall both exceeded 90%. The evaluation covered 1,300 satellite images from five regions.
In addition, by applying Google's Generative AI "Gemini," the company plans to automatically generate natural-language reports of detection and change analysis results and develop a feature that allows users to ask questions about the outputs. The goal is to improve usability for public institutions and environmental group practitioners who are not familiar with satellite imagery or geographic information systems (GIS).
During this period, TelePIX will validate a system that continuously processes country-level Mangrove detection in the Google Cloud environment and apply Gemini-based report generation and query functions. It will also pursue field demonstrations with public institutions and conservation groups in Southeast Asia.
Park Young-je, head of the Future Innovative Technology Research Institute at TelePIX, said, "Mangroves are an ecosystem of high importance in terms of carbon storage and the use of blue carbon policies," adding, "Through this program, we will validate a monitoring system that can be used in the field."