PR99563

CANNES, France, Feb. 13, 2023 /PRNewswire=KYODO JBN/ --

Huawei and its partners were awarded the Neurons Awards Special Jury Prize

yesterday at World AI Cannes Festival 2023 for an AI-based solution to protect

endangered wild Atlantic salmon native to Norway.

Wild Atlantic salmon are an integral part of Norway's identity, culture, and

economy. However, its numbers have halved since the 1980s due to the

proliferation of Pacific salmon (also known as pink or humpback salmon), an

invasive species that out-competes its Atlantic cousin for resources and spawns

in great numbers.

In 2021 under Huawei's TECH4ALL initiative, Huawei partnered with Berlevåg

Jeger-og Fiskerforening (BJFF), a local association of hunters and anglers, to

design and deploy an AI-based filtering system to prevent the spread of Pacific

salmon in Norway's rivers, with the pilot project taking place in Storelva

River in Berlevåg. The solution uses underwater video technology and AI to

identify Pacific salmon, with an automated gate system filtering the invasive

species into a holding tank and preventing them from swimming upstream to

breed. The system lets wild Atlantic salmon and Arctic red-spotted salmon pass

through to complete their breeding cycles.

As well as preserving local biodiversity, the survival of wild Atlantic salmon

is crucial to Norway's fishery industry as the genes for farmed salmon are

pulled from wild salmon.

"Norway's wild salmon are threatened by other species, including humpback

salmon and escaped farmed salmon. The monitoring system using AI is helping to

stop this and enable future-proof river management," said Tor Schulstad,

Administrator for BJFF.

With Huawei's Ascend platform providing the solution's computing

infrastructure, local partners Simula Consulting and Troll Systems developed

the recognition algorithm and automated sorting mechanism, respectively.

"It has been a very exciting and motivating project to be a part of. At Simula

Consulting we strive to make deep tech available to everyone, and it's

heartening to see that that can include wildlife," said Dr. Omar Richardson,

Acting Chief Technology Officer for Simula Consulting.

Video: https://mma.prnewswire.com/media/1999202/video.mp4

Introduced this year at World AI Cannes Festival, the Neurons

Awards(https://www.worldaicannes.com/neurons) Special Jury Prize recognizes

projects that use AI for the common good and the creation of a better future.

The winner is selected by a jury consisting of 12 representatives from the

business world, academia, and the political community.

"We are honored to have won the first Neurons Awards Special Prize at WAICF.

Huawei strongly believes in the power of digital technologies to build a more

inclusive and sustainable society," said Zhang Minggang, Deputy Managing

Director of Huawei France. "This project is proof that AI is making a

difference in protecting the planet and we will continue working with our

partners to deliver change through innovation. It was with this conviction that

we launched our TECH4ALL initiative, through which Huawei has already been

involved in dozens of projects that have a positive impact on communities,

people, and the environment across the globe."

Following the successful pilot in Berlevåg, the scalable solution can

potentially be expanded to Norway's system of 500 rivers, which also face the

same problem with invasive Pacific salmon.

About Huawei TECH4ALL

TECH4ALL is Huawei's long-term digital inclusion initiative that aims to leave

no one behind in the digital world. It focuses on four domains: enabling

education equity and quality, conserving nature with technology, enabling

inclusive healthcare, and development.

For more information, please visit Huawei TECH4ALL website at

https://www.huawei.com/en/tech4all

Follow us on Twitter at

https://twitter.com/HUAWEI_TECH4ALL

SOURCE: Huawei

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