AqQua: The Aquatic Life Foundation Project

AqQua seeks to create the first foundational pelagic imaging model by consolidating billions of images from diverse aquatic environments around the globe. These images capture a vast range of species—from tiny plankton to larger marine organisms—and hold key insights into biodiversity and ecosystem health. By developing an AI model capable of classifying species, extracting biological traits, and estimating organic carbon content, AqQua will provide critical data necessary for understanding the biological carbon pump — a natural process that sequesters vast amounts of carbon from the atmosphere, significantly affecting global climate.