Larry Ellison and Elon Musk teaming up to bring AI to farming
- SpaceX and Oracle are developing an AI-powered mapping application for farms.
- Larry Ellison announced the venture with Elon Musk on Oracle's earnings call on Monday.
Elon Musk's SpaceX is teaming up with Larry Ellison's Oracle to help farms plan and predict their agricultural output using an AI tool.
Larry Ellison said on Oracle's earnings call on Monday that it's collaborating with Musk and SpaceX to create the AI-powered mapping application for governments. The tool creates a map of a country's farms and shows what each of them is growing.
The Oracle executive chairman said the tool could help farms assess the steps needed to increase their output, and whether fields had enough water and nitrogen.
"We're doing that again in concert with Elon Musk and SpaceX to do this kind of mapping," Ellison said, according to a transcript provided by Seeking Alpha.
The billionaires go way back. The Oracle founder and SpaceX CEO are "very close friends", Ellison has repeatedly said. He used to be on the board of Tesla from 2018 to 2022. Ellison once said: "I am not sure how many people know, but I'm very close friends with Elon Musk, and I'm a big investor in Tesla."
SpaceX entered the agricultural sector in January after announcing a partnership with John Deere. It's going to start offering Starlink, SpaceX's satellite communications service, to farmers this year so they can use the agriculture tech firm's tools.
John Deere's CTO, Jahmy Hindman, said in a press release at the time that it's bringing Starlink to farmers so they can "maximize the value of connectivity to their operations."
SpaceX and Oracle didn't immediately respond to requests for comment from Business Insider, made outside normal working hours.