AI: Irvine’s Swarm Engineering links with Virginia Tech on supply chain work

Swarm Engineering, an Irvine startup that uses artificial intelligence to manage agri-food supply chains, said Nov. 16 it has entered a research and development agreement with Virginia Tech’s Grado Department of Industrial and Systems Engineering.

The department “is committed to continued advancement on the forefront of science and technology. This collaboration with Swarm will expand our innovations in the cognitive computing space,” Virginia Tech Director and Professor Ran Jin said in a statement.

The goal of the project is to combine Swarm’s machine learning techniques with operational research, and novel visualization approaches, the company said.

Swarm’s SaaS offerings aim to solve problems such as supply and demand forecasting, optimizing inbound and outbound logistics, and maximizing yield in controlled environment agriculture.

The company reported raising a $2.7 million seed round in April.

Swarm and Virginia Tech plan to develop innovative ways to reduce cost of production and transportation, “positively impacting” sustainability in the industry, the company said.