@rowancheung: Weyerhaeuser, America’s largest private timberland owner, is deploying AI across its 10.4 million acres of U.S. forest. The 125-year-old company aims to boost annual profits by roughly $1 billion by 2030, independent of lumber prices. Initiatives include a “digital twin” mapping each tree via satellite, drones, and lidar, and an in-cab AI assistant guiding which trees to cut. AI also counts seedling survival from drone footage, sparing foresters steep terrain. The company is also testing semiautonomous skidders, the machines that drag felled trees across logging sites. In one pilot, an operator 400 miles away maneuvered a skidder equipped with AI navigation and terrain mapping from Kodama Systems, pointing toward a future where one person runs several machines remotely, or even full autonomy.

Rowan Cheung

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Friday 29 May 2026 16:00:00 GMT