Agriculture Technology Campus, the largest agricultural opportunity zone project in the history of South Carolina and the largest agricultural investment in a Federal Qualified Opportunity Zone, will be receiving innovative blockchain and artificial intelligence (AI) solutions from Core Scientific, an infrastructure and software solutions for AI and Blockchain.
“Simply put, this is a major investment for the state of South Carolina, which has never seen an agricultural project of this scale. Additionally, a partnership of this nature between such well-respected names in the industry is the first of its kind,” said Zeb Portanova, the CEO of GEM Opportunity Zone Fund.
“We’re teaming with Core Scientific to create a bonafide technological epicenter for agriculture not just locally, but globally. Once fully realized, the Agriculture Technology Campus will be able to provide pesticide-free, locally grown produce for 50 to 60 million Americans in the Southeast from the vine to the shelf in just a couple of days.”
Blockchain enables the data registry to remain transparent and immutable. Case in point, the produce recorded on the blockchain can be easily traced from seed source to table. It will be within the abilities of the consumers to guarantee the provenance of their food, and producers can spot and fix issues that occur throughout the supply chain.
With the blockchain and the AI technologies working together, it can greatly affect the way partners in the Agriculture Technology Campus work interoperably.
Ian Ferreira, Chief Product Officer of Core Scientific’s Artificial Intelligence division said:
“We will be working alongside the GEM Opportunity Zone Fund to commit all of the Agriculture Technology Campus facilities to Smart Agriculture increasing productivity, yield and crop provenance.
Using blockchain paired with AI-enabled production processes and technologies, the goal is to create a Center of Excellence for this agriculture category right here in the US.”
A joint venture project between Mastronardi, Clear Water Farms, LiDestri Food and Drink and GEM Opportunity Zone Fund, Agriculture Technology Campus is one of the largest agriculture investments in South Carolina of all time and has $314 million in investment. The campus is set to be operational in 2022 and fully by 2025.
