Artificial intelligence is at the heart of the fourth industrial revolution, given its impact on various aspects of human life. From enhancing personal assistants, healthcare services, delivery and transportation, the technology has given rise to the new era of digitization. The technology has since found its way deep into the sea, to map and monitor pipelines carrying fuel and cables for power and communication.
While there have been concerns that huge stretches of these critical connectors lay unprotected deep in the sea, things are slowly changing. Just as drones have had a significant impact in transforming the way modern warfare is conducted, artificial intelligence is about to transform how the deep sea is monitored.
Seabed defense and warfare are already being transformed by AI-powered underwater systems. The military and governments are deploying drones and anti-mine robots in conjunction with surface ships, underwater sensors, and satellites. AI is increasingly used in these navigation, mapping, and underwater defense systems to evaluate and combine data from various sources.
North.io is a company leveraging AI to create systems that protect undersea technology and infrastructure. The company’s ultimate goal is to ensure transparency in the sea by monitoring thousands of miles of cable and other installations in real-time.
“In the future, unmanned maritime systems in the air and underwater are going to be active. AI will help us develop the systems that will enable us to identify and combat suspicious behavior underwater,” said Lt. Col. Rene Heise, a staff officer in the Critical Undersea Infrastructure Coordination Cell.
Nevertheless, the kind of accurate, real-time map of the ocean and objects that would be necessary for total undersea autonomy still faces several challenges. For example, today's mine-clearing underwater vehicles usually only recognize familiar objects. Therefore, a threatening object may not be identified if it is not in the AI's catalog.
The mapping and monitoring of the deep sea using AI underscores the role AI is likely to play in the future and the impact it is likely to have. Likewise, its free use underlines and affirms the growing calls for fewer regulations that spur innovation and development in the nascent sector.
The push comes as US tech giants call out Europe’s artificial intelligence industry, reiterating it is being held back by excessive regulation. Executives of two US tech giants have already raised concerns about the block’s strict approach to AI and machine learning.
“I think there is now broad consensus that European regulation around technology has its issues, and sometimes it’s too fragmented, like GDPR [General Data Protection Regulation], sometimes it goes too far, like the AI Act,” Chris Yiu, Meta’s director of public policy, told an audience of tech founders and investors at Techarena. In an effort to soften some aspects of the AI Act, big tech companies, in general, have been increasing their lobbying efforts and using more rhetoric against the EU's approach to tech regulation.
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Snowflake (SNOW) Gets Bullish Analyst Outlook as AI Integration Drives Demand
A software engineer at work, surrounded by a wall of computer monitors connected to a 'Data Cloud' platform.
Snowflake Inc. (NYSE:SNOW) is a technology company that offers a cloud-based data warehousing platform that allows users to store, analyze, and securely share large volumes of data. It offers Snowflake Cortex a suite of AI features that use large language models to understand unstructured data. It also offers Snowflake ML, which provides functionalities for building traditional machine learning models.
On February 21, analysts at KeyBank Capital Markets reiterated their optimistic stance on the company with an Overweight rating and a $210 price target. The bullish buy rating follows a recent survey that showed Snowflake is well-positioned to benefit as online analytical processing becomes a key priority. The company is experiencing strong momentum on its new product offerings, such as data engineering, and has achieved over $200 million in annual recurring revenue. Cortex is expected to contribute a few percentage points to growth in fiscal year 2026.
Overall SNOW ranks 2nd on our list of the AI stocks on the move and on analysts' radar. While we acknowledge the potential of SNOW as an investment, our conviction lies in the belief that AI stocks hold greater promise for delivering higher returns and doing so within a shorter time frame. If you are looking for an AI stock that is more promising than SNOW but that trades at less than 5 times its earnings, check out our report about the cheapest AI stock.
