AI-powered blockchain architecture for real-time analytics in smart agriculture

Smart agriculture has emerged as a cornerstone for ensuring sustainable farming practices and global food security. However, the realization of its full potential relies upon the ability to effectively utilize vast amounts of data generated by sensors and other sources such as weather data and market conditions. Even though data analytics in smart agriculture holds significant potential, there are several challenges such as data fragmentation, privacy and security, interoperability, quality, scalability, compliance with regulatory authorities and real-time analytics (Jadav et al. 2022). Thus, this research study aims to develop an AI-powered blockchain architecture that integrates AI and blockchain to address critical data analytics challenges in smart agriculture. The uniqueness of this proposed architecture is attributed to real-time analytics for achieving informed decision-making, enhanced productivity, sustainability, and profitability within the agricultural ecosystem. In the proposed architecture, AI algorithms such as convolutional neural network and optimization algorithms are applied for real-time data processing, predictive analytics, and decision support to facilitate timely responses to changing environmental and market conditions. Meanwhile, blockchain is used to provide a secure and transparent way to manage data ownership and access permissions, allowing farmers to retain control over their data while sharing it with trusted partners. The architecture consists of several layers such as data source, real-time analytics, blockchain and presentation. Data source layer aggregates data from various sources, standardizing formats and ensuring compatibility. AI-driven real-time analytics layer performs processing of data in real-time, enabling immediate insights into crop conditions, plant health, soil conditions, resource management, and supply chain dynamics. Smart contracts at blockchain layer capture analytical data for sharing and ensure its security and immutability. Presentation layer performs automation of data sharing and access permissions, protecting farmers' privacy while enabling trusted collaboration. The outcome of this research study is the development of an AI-powered blockchain architecture for real-time analytics in smart agriculture. The proposed architecture provides numerous benefits to farmers by enhancing their decision-making capabilities, increasing transparency and trust among agriculture communities, and improving access to reliable agriculture data.