You might have seen initiatives like aqua drones and jelly fish filters cleaning our oceans, or desalination and wastewater treatment technologies being used to help curb the freshwater crisis.

One area where AI is making vast improvements is in the development of smarter cities. Fracta is a company that uses machine learning to plan water main replacements. In order to avoid something they call “pipeaggedon” they are analyzing large data sets in order to shed light on what’s really happening with a city’s infrastructure. The technology can also accurately predict the possibility of water main failure for the fraction of the cost in a fraction of the time. Not only does benefit the city itself, but the taxpayer who would suffer the consequences of dirty (or lack of) water and ultimately be responsible for the cost.