PepsiCo GHAC APAC 2025 Champion’s Plans: Key Summary
- Beijing AIForce won PepsiCo’s APAC Greenhouse Accelerator, earning US$100,000.
- Its flagship innovation is an AI-powered, zero-emission autonomous tractor for farming which AI run 24/7, reduce waste, improve crop quality, and cut carbon emissions.
- It has a successful potato farming pilot in China which has now led to a five-year PepsiCo deal.
- Expansion targets include Pakistan, Malaysia, Southeast Asia, and Eastern Europe.
- Its tech addresses labour shortages, climate-friendly food production, and yield stability.
PepsiCo named Beijing AIForce Technology (Beijing AIForce) as the new champion of this year’s GHAC APAC edition earlier this year, a win that saw the firm take home US$100,000 in winnings.
The firm won for its flagship innovation, an AI-powered low-carbon automatic tractor – but CEO Dr Han Wei highlighted that the firm’s specialisation in the areas of AI and new energy mean that it is not limited to just this invention.
“Our goal is to develop smart, A-to-Z farming solutions that can be used for agri-food production all over the Asia Pacific region and beyond,” Dr Han told us.
“For now our first market for strategic practice has been in China where we are making sure to have proof-of-concept, but our technology is very versatile and can be used in many markets for many different crops.”
Beijing AIForce’s early pilot success has been in potato farming in China, a collaboration with PepsiCo – and this has shown such promise that PepsiCo has sign a further five-year agreement with them for potatoes in the country, and the firm intends to use its winnings to make the most of this opportunity.
“We are very grateful for the win and this sign of trust in our technology, and with the winnings we will be able to finetune our AI model for crops so as to improve the tractor reliability and prepare it better for use with even more crops,” Beijing AIForce Product Manager Li Muhua added.
“This strengthened relationship with PepsiCo also means that we can access more local farmer partners in China, which will enable us to perform even more field tests and deploy more sensors to obtain more data for analysis so as to ascertain the impact of the tech on potato production. This will be complemented with farmer training and support to help them obtain and use digital tools comfortably.”
The firm sees its PepsiCo collaboration as a long-term one, with projects still ongoing in PepsiCo potato fields and processing facilities in Gansu province, China.
It also has ongoing projects in Eastern Europe and has its eye on Pakistan, Malaysia and other South East Asian markets.
“The focus for us is clear and practical: To reduce the emissions and inputs used in agri-food production to give cleaner food, while also improving the yield and quality of food,” Dr Han said.
“People want cleaner food and they also want safer food in every sense of the word – technologies like this can help to ensure that farm and food production is improved in terms of both transparency and smart management.”
Why an AI-powered tractor?
To many traditional agri-food producers, an AI-powered tractor tends to sound more of a luxury than a practicality – but times are a-changing, making this sort of technology crucial to not only improve yield and productivity but also ensure the survival of the industry.
“Crop yield is important, but it is not the only factor to consider when it comes to food production – the main concern for many farms today is labour shortage as young people are unwilling to sit on a tractor for over 10 hours a day,” Dr Han added.
“There is also increasing concern over the safety of human labour spending long hours in the field, as well as pressure for more climate-friendly food production. These are all benefits that our AI autonomous tractor can bring as it can work for 24 hours, reduces waste, ensures crop quality and stabilises yield – all based on data-driven tech.”
The firm’s market research has shown that other major agri-food areas searching for such technology are in the livestock space as well as fruit orchards in Europe and Australia.
“One of the key reasons our tractors are seeing high demand are due to these being designed to have zero carbon emissions, making them even more attractive in markets such as Europe,” Li added.
