---
title: "Google’s Parent Company Is Building a Farming Robot"
description: "X, the Moonshot project incubator owned by Google's parent company Alphabet, is working on hardware prototype robots that could help us grow food."
date: "2020-10-13"
modified: "2020-10-13"
authors:
  - name: "Victor Tangermann"
    job_title: "Senior Editor"
    link: "https://futurism.com/authors/victor"
url: "https://futurism.com/the-byte/google-alphabet-building-farming-robot"
categories:
  - "Artificial Intelligence"
  - "Google"
  - "Robotics"
  - "Robots and Machines"
tags:
  - "alphabet"
  - "food robot"
  - "food tech"
  - "the digest"
---

# Google’s Parent Company Is Building a Farming Robot

![](<https://futurism.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/10/google-alphabet-building-farming-robot.jpg>)
*\<em\>Image: Mineral\</em\>*

## Computational Agriculture

X, the moonshot project incubator run by Google's parent company Alphabet, is working on prototype robots designed to help grow everthing from strawberries to soy beans.

In a [blog post](<https://blog.x.company/mineral-bringing-the-era-of-computational-agriculture-to-life-427bca6bd56a>), X project lead Elliot Grant discusses a new project he's working on called "Mineral" — a suite of hardware and software tools that analyze the "complexity of the plant world."

In other words, the goal is to get better insight into how our food grows — and quantify it, a process Mineral is calling "computational agriculture."

![](<https://futurism.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/10/1_RuBWcYeRmA1Y8ae9HZejJg.png>)

## Plant Buggy

Meet, for example, the "Plant Buggy." It's an adorable little rover, reminiscent of NASA's crawlers examining the landscape on Mars, that can "collect plant-level insights" such as spotting any desirable or undesirable traits a certain plant may have.

"By combining the imagery gathered by the plant buggy with other data sets like satellite imagery, weather data, and soil information, the team is able to create a full picture of what’s happening in the field and use machine learning to identify patterns and useful insights into how plants grow and interact with their environment," reads the [startup's website](<https://x.company/projects/mineral/>).

Mineral is hoping that its tools will enable us to predict how plants respond to different environments and how to better predict the yield of a certain crop by precisely tracking plant growth over time.

The small startup is still "in development" according to its website, but it is already "learning from innovative breeders and growers in Argentina, Canada, the U.S. and South Africa."

**READ MORE:** [Mineral: Bringing the era of computational agriculture to life](<https://blog.x.company/mineral-bringing-the-era-of-computational-agriculture-to-life-427bca6bd56a>) \[X\]

**More on agriculture:** *[UN Warning: Food Is Going to Get Really, Really Expensive](<https://futurism.com/the-byte/un-warning-climate-change-food-expensive>)*

## Author
I've been at Futurism since 2017, where my role has evolved to encompass design, writing, and increasingly editing. I've always been fascinated by space exploration and advanced transportation, which I've leaned into by interviewing luminaries in those fields while closely following the dimensions of policy and regulation that allow next-generation projects to succeed -- or, sometimes, to fail. I'm also keenly interested in the effects of generative AI on society, policies, and democratic institutions, as well as clean energy, physics and biology, and the vagaries of tech leadership. My work for Futurism has been cited by publications including Ars Technica, Gizmodo, PC Magazine, Jalopnik, Fox News, and the New York Post. I spent my childhood living in locations including Manila, the Philippines, and Geneva, Switzerland, attended McGill University, and now live in Toronto, Canada. Before Futurism I worked at AskMen and a small photography studio. In my free time, I'm an avid gardener, foodie, and craft beer lover, as well as a maker of artisanal hot pepper sauces. I have a magnificent dog named Freida.

### Author social links  
[Bluesky](<https://bsky.app/profile/vtanger.bsky.social>)