Subsequent Use

Image 7: Clean Water AI Open Source software, Source: Clean Water AI

model, Clean Water AI provides technical support for the software and runs the cloud services for the city. The company would also provide development services for optional dashboards and other features. This would enable cities to identify contaminated parts of their water supply systems more efficiently and by doing so improve water quality. This, in turn, would lead to fewer people becoming ill, which would benefit health systems.

The project entered and won the Microsoft AI Lab Challenge. This is validation from the market and clearly shows its potential. However, due to global challenges such as COVID-19 and trade wars between the U.S. and parts of the Middle and Far East, plans to roll out the project further in China, for example, are currently on hold.

Critical perspective

Stability – Clean Water AI is an operational, tested application for a narrow margin of customers. It is an extremely interesting application for cities and regions in developing countries as it would enable them to enhance their water monitoring capabilities when not using chlorine-based purification systems. The application and its IoT device could also be developed and trained further to detect other pollutants besides bacteria, making the devices and software even more useful. Many lives would be dependent on such a tool and so the AI must be built on a solid technology basis and be able to detect pollutants with a high level of accuracy.