Metsähallitus and CollectiveCrunch announce partnership to bring AI to forestry
The ambitious co-operation, based on an innovation partnership, targets the development, planning and usage of 5 million hectares of forest land
Tech company CollectiveCrunch and Metsähallitus Forestry Ltd., the subsidiary of Finnish state-owned land and forest management enterprise Metsähallitus have entered into an innovation partnership with the goal of improving harvesting and forest development planning through deep artificial intelligence (AI) technology and big data analysis.
The organizations will develop new forestry tools and services throughout the course of their innovation-driven partnership using CollectiveCrunch’s Linda Forest technology platform. Linda Forest is an AI platform that utilizes climate, geo, and customer process data to arrive at better predictions of forest inventory. The solution lets foresters know the volumes and species of wood they have on their land without having to drive out for inspection.
“We selected CollectiveCrunch as our AI-partner as their know-how, innovative approach, highly-capable software platform, and vision for our co-operation closely complimented our own objectives for developing forestry as a whole,” said Metsähallitus Forestry CEO Mr. Jussi Kumpula. “We expect this partnership to lead to forest inventory being developed and utilized even more efficiently than before, with artificial intelligence-powered breakthroughs in technology, tools, and services being key objectives.
Forestry silviculture and harvesting planners will benefit from AI-generated suggestions compiled using multiple data sets and taking many variables into consideration.
“In the long run,” continued Kumpula, “the target is the full automation of all processes AI is suited to handle, leaving our employees free to concentrate on tasks that require ‘human intelligence.’”
Finland and the Nordics are home to highly-advanced forestry industries, yet key players have not yet fully capitalized on the opportunities presented by machine learning and artificial intelligence. The partnership between CollectiveCrunch and Metsähallitus represent a clear path to improving the situation.
“We are very proud to be selected as Metsähallitus’ AI partner, especially considering the caliber of the IT and forestry companies that participated in the tendering process,” said CollectiveCrunch Chief Product Officer Jarkko Lipponen. “Our Linda Forest solution closely matches Metsähallitus’ needs, and we have a clear path towards its further development and commercialization.”
“Our aim is to bring our innovative platform to the forestry industry and help to improve forest development and management. The Linda Forest SaaS platform will enable us to create highly-accurate, AI-supported tools that increase profitability and productivity”, he concluded.
CollectiveCrunch, founded in 2016, is a fast-growing technology company with forest industry customers in Finland, Sweden, Estonia, and Brazil.
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For additional information:
Media kit with pictures
Rolf Schmitz, CEO
CollectiveCrunch Oy
+49 151 1972 6650
rs@collectivecrunch.com
Tarmo Myllymäki
Metsähallitus Metsätalous Oy
+358 400 587 375
tarmo.myllymaki@metsa.fi
About CollectiveCrunch:
CollectiveCrunch is a leader in AI for the forestry industry. We ‘collect’ climate, geo, and process data to ‘crunch’ this information for deeper insights and prediction. We predict wood mass and quality of forest inventories and bring a step-change to prediction accuracy. www.collectivecrunch.com
About Metsähallitus:
Metsähallitus is a Finnish state-owned enterprise that runs business activities while also fulfilling many public administration duties. Metsähallitus administers more than 12 million hectares of state-owned land and water areas. Metsähallitus has the challenging responsibility of managing and using these areas in a way that benefits Finnish society to the greatest extent possible. Metsähallitus Forestry Ltd is responsible for harvesting and selling timber, as well as maintaining state-owned forests in accordance with the principles of multiple use. www.metsa.fi/web/en
