Intelligent breeding platform launched in South China

HAIKOU—The Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences (CAAS) has confirmed the launch of an intelligent breeding platform for processing breeding data.

The platform, jointly developed by the Hainan-based National Nanfan Research Institute (Sanya), the Institute of Crop Sciences under the CAAS and Alibaba's DAMO Academy, features world-leading data capacity, speed and data security measures.

It has realized integration of the whole breeding process, including breeding data management and analysis, optimization and acceleration of large model and large computing power, identification of suitable parents, and prediction of excellent varieties via an artificial intelligence algorithm.

High-throughput data analysis used in the breeding process requires huge computing power, modeling technology, complex command line operation skills, and various toolkits -- which is inconvenient for researchers to operate.

This meant that the development of a high-throughput computing platform with rich functionality, a friendly operation interface, and which relies on cloud services and artificial intelligence for precision breeding, was a priority.

The recently launched platform offers key features such as germplasm resource information management, breeding experiment design and simulation, mass breeding omics data storage, high-throughput data analysis, and intelligent breeding decision-making.

It supports the integration and deep mining of large-scale omics information and phenotypic information data, said the CAAS.

Based on a self-developed breeding decision algorithm, the platform can accurately predict crop traits and identify excellent genotypes, which will improve the accuracy and efficiency of variety breeding.

The platform also uses an artificial intelligence algorithm to efficiently manage, schedule and analyze breeding big data, while the speed of operation of this process has been greatly improved.

To date, breeders from 23 research units around the world have used the platform, according to the CAAS.

The platform combines massive crop breeding data with an advanced big data algorithm, providing a new option for intelligent breeding, said Qian Qian, an academician of the Chinese Academy of Sciences.