California based AI data training specialist Labelbox, whose platform is used to train AI in industrial and agricultural applications, has opened a new European office in London. The company is seeing much of its growth coming from adoption of AI for industrial purposes across the continent.

Labelbox has customers in more than a dozen countries in Europe. In Ireland, Cainthus uses computer vision to monitor livestock herds around the clock alerting farmers to changing conditions so they can feed cattle more efficiently. In the UK, Winnow Solutions uses computer vision and AI to track and analyse food waste in industrial kitchens. Its customer IKEA slashed food waste 45% in just three months, and the company estimates its solution has reduced customer CO2 emissions by more than 60,000 tons to date. In the Netherlands, Xarvio Digital Farming Solutions uses smartphone, drone and satellite imagery to build AI-powered products that advise farmers on how to maximise productivity.

Other customers in Europe include ArcelorMittal, BASF, Bayer, Bosch Siemens, Criteo, Faurecia, Husqvarna and ICEYE.

With algorithms available for free and computing resources increasingly commoditised, high-quality labelled training data is the most valuable asset for enterprises adopting supervised learning solutions. To build real-world applications, machine learning teams need robust infrastructure that is able to import raw data into labelling workflows, allowing enterprises to manage widely distributed annotation teams, monitor quality, adjust for bias, and export high-quality labelled training data to machine-learning models.

Labelbox functions like a command centre for enterprise data. It automates the process with a pre-labelling web-based platform so that enterprises can connect and collaborate easily across databases, BPOs and labelling services regardless of time zone or geography. Labelbox customers report accelerating iteration cycles by up to 800 percent using the platform and cutting development time in half in pushing new models into production.

Labelbox is currently being used by industries as diverse as aerospace, agriculture, automotive, insurance, healthcare, media, military intelligence, travel and more with hundreds of customers that include Airbnb, Arcelor Mital, BASF, Bayer, Black & Decker, Bristol Myers Squibb, Genentech and Warner Brothers.

“For customers who want to get to production artificial intelligence solutions faster, Labelbox makes it easy to create and manage your training data, people, and processes in a single place,” said Manu Sharma, CEO and co-founder. “We’re seeing exceptional growth in Europe – more than a quarter of our business. The innovation cycles in Europe are leading the world in many industries and we’re excited to be involved and now have a specialist team in Europe closer to those customers to help them be successful faster.”

“The data labelling marketing today is already a $4 billion annual industry but the upside for this nascent market is orders of magnitude larger,” EMEA Vice President Teon Rosandic said. “Labelbox has a remarkably broad roster of Global 2000 enterprise customers, deploying our AI platform across many different applications and use cases. I believe Labelbox is perfectly positioned to grab a significant share of this exploding market opportunity.”