00:00At this test site for a fully automated indoor shrimp farm, there are no more surprises.
00:08Two years after the start of the project, the team, led by founder John Diener, is going
00:14to market.
00:15In the second half of this year, we will have 60 of these tanks.
00:19And then there's a robotic gantry that goes up and down the middle of that racking system.
00:23No, no people are touching the tank.
00:25It's running autonomously the whole time.
00:27The farm is located in a harbour warehouse.
00:30The shrimp grow in these tanks under almost perfect conditions and only need half as long
00:37to reach market size as in conventional open-air farms.
00:41An AI-controlled computer system constantly measures and improves their conditions.
00:48Underwater cameras track the development of the shrimp.
00:51The team collects so much data that only an AI system can make sense of it.
00:56This is a system that the more it runs, the better it gets.
00:59A bit like a Tesla car.
01:01The price of the shrimp is already competitive, but the system's biggest advantage is yet
01:06to come.
01:07It can be set up anywhere in the world, eliminating the cost of expensive supply chains.
01:15This batch is being sent out to restaurants near the city.
01:19Just hours after they come out of the water, customers here can enjoy raw prawns.
01:25With pickled green chilli and a little horseradish and lime.
01:28So we always tell them where the prawns come from and that it's locally farmed in Singapore,
01:33which is different.
01:34Like you can't, most things that are farmed in Singapore, you don't want to eat.
01:40I mean, the waters here aren't the greatest, right?
01:44Back at the shrimp farm behind the busy Singapore harbour, John Diener takes a closer look at
01:50the seaweed filtration system.
01:53The different algae species here allow the farm to operate a zero-discharge recirculating
02:00system.
02:01The shrimp farm has been using the same water for over two years, hence the distinctive
02:06colour.
02:07Both the seaweed and the shrimp are regularly tested for diseases, but so far the farm has
02:13had no problems.
02:15This is a crucial difference to conventional shrimp farms, which often have to use antibiotics.
02:21John Diener worked in the shrimp industry for 10 years, until he decided that shrimp
02:26farming needed a new approach, one with competitive costs and minimal environmental impact.
02:33Sometimes we see the shrimp, they kind of like to just float up with the bubbles and
02:36then go around and then float up again and go around and float up again.
02:40It's almost like they're kind of having fun.
02:43The team is already thinking about applying its AI farming system to chickens or cattle.
02:49But first they want to breed their own shrimp, instead of buying young shrimp from Thailand.
02:56According to the two founders, aquaculture is just the beginning for this new generation
03:01of agricultural systems, in which the computer is the farmer.
