Agriculture and Data Centers — a Match Made for the Future

A new white paper from QTS explores the need for robust, low-latency connectivity to directly support the future of farming. And in broaching this topic, the report also explores agriculture and data centers — and the role data  facilities have in enabling agrotech.

The new report begins by highlighting how available farmland is dwindling dramatically, and the agricultural community needs to find “innovative ways to use this finite acreage.”

Enter agrotechnology.

“Agrotech, also called Smart or Precision Farming, is the use of technology to improve the efficiency, yield, and, ideally, profitability of a farm, ranch or similar enterprise,” QTS explains. “By integrating a series of technologies and next generation connectivity, agrotech helps farmers do more with less.”

Today, agrotech utilizes a widening array of IT innovations, including AI, data analytics, machine learning, robotics, GPS, edge computing, fiber and more to further improve production.

According to the report, small, remotely managed edge data centers will provide the proximity to rural areas to handle latency-sensitive, locally cached data requirements.

“While our population continues to grow, the amount of farmable land remains the same.,” QTS, Technology Takes on Agriculture — The need for Robust, Low-Latency Connectivity to Support the Future of Farming

And these edge data centers will likely focus on autonomous vehicles, robots and drones that demand real-time updates, and may also support basic data mining and some machine learning.

“An edge data center could quickly process information to allow a strawberry picker to compare images to determine if a spot on a strawberry is an insect, dirt or disease,” the report points out.

On the other hand, QTS asserts larger data centers that are further away from the source of data will continue to process the bulk of data mining and machine learning applications, as they are better equipped to deliver the serious compute power needed for larger files and intense analytics that are not latency dependent.

This report from QTS highlights how improving farming yield is an issue that impacts all of us.

“We need farmers to be successful, and as technologists, they need us to help them get there. In addition to developing innovative IT solutions that can help them improve their processes, we need to advocate for and support powerful, yet affordable infrastructure in these rural areas,” QTS concludes.

Download the full report, “Technology Takes on Agriculture — The need for Robust, Low-Latency Connectivity to Support the Future of Farming,” courtesy of QTS Data Centers, to further explore the symbiotic relationship between data center technology and agriculture, and the impact tech will have on the future of farming.