Social networking giant Facebook is using its artificial intelligence (AI) technology and resources to map the entire Earth and launch the world’s most detailed population maps that will help it beam cheap Internet to remote areas.
To begin with, the Facebook AI team crunched 14.6 billion images of maps from across 20 countries, including India, covering 21.6 million sq kms to come up with the first detailed map of human settlement for these countries.
“This is an impressive project from our team developing solar-powered planes for beaming down Internet connectivity and our AI research team. Many people live in remote communities and accurate data on where people live doesn’t always exist,” wrote Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg in a latest post.
The 20 countries mapped were Algeria, Burkina Faso, Cameroon, Egypt, Ethiopia, Ghana, India, Ivory Coast, Kenya, Madagascar, Mexico, Mozambique, Nigeria, South Africa, Sri Lanka, Tanzania, Turkey, Uganda, Ukraine and Uzbekistan.