FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
AgriGates Awarded 2026 CPLE Grant to Establish DAT-AI-LAB at Penn Vet
Philadelphia, PA, February 2026 – AgriGates has been awarded a 2026 grant from the Pennsylvania Center for Poultry and Livestock Excellence (CPLE) to support the establishment of the Data, Analytics, and Technology for Artificial Intelligence in Livestock Animal Behavior Laboratory (DAT-AI-LAB) at the University of Pennsylvania School of Veterinary Medicine.
The award supports a 12-month project focused on building Pennsylvania’s first integrated behavioral AI infrastructure for livestock agriculture, combining veterinary science, animal behavior, data engineering, and machine learning to improve farm animal welfare, livestock productivity, and farm sustainability.
Project title – Making Pennsylvania a Center for Data, Analytics, and Technology for Artificial Intelligence in Livestock Animal Behavior (DAT-AI-LAB).
DAT-AI-LAB will be located at Penn Vet’s Swine Teaching and Research Center and developed in close collaboration with Thomas D. Parsons, Marie A. Moore Professor of Animal Welfare and Ethics and Director of the Center for Stewardship Agriculture and Food Security. The lab builds directly on two prior CPLE-funded AgriGates projects, validating high-frequency wearable sensors and developing integrated behavioral data platforms for machine-learning–based auto-annotation in swine.
“This year’s award allows us to move from proven research tools to durable infrastructure that is species agnostic,” said Daniel Foy, Co-Founder and CEO of AgriGates. “DAT-AI-LAB establishes Pennsylvania as a national leader in ethical, reproducible livestock AI, giving producers, veterinarians, and researchers the tools they need to objectively measure animal behavior and improve animal health, welfare, and productivity.”
“Support from CPLE has been critical to this collaboration and the research it enables,” Foy added. “We are grateful to the entire CPLE team for their continued support and for championing innovation in Pennsylvania agriculture.”
The project will deploy multimodal sensing systems, including wearable IMU sensors, video, and audio, paired with expert-validated annotation workflows and open, reproducible machine-learning pipelines. Key outcomes include standardized behavioral datasets, validated AI models for automated behavior detection, and hands-on workforce training for students, veterinarians, and producers.
“Behavior is one of the most powerful yet often overlooked indicators of animal health, welfare, and productivity,” said Dr. Parsons. “DAT-AI-LAB provides the scientific rigor, infrastructure, and training needed to translate behavioral data into meaningful, trustworthy insights for animal agriculture in the AI age.”
The DAT-AI-LAB initiative supports Pennsylvania’s broader goals around agricultural competitiveness, digital workforce development, and science-based animal welfare and sustainability, while laying the foundation for future research partnerships, industry collaboration, and farm-ready innovation.
About AgriGates
AgriGates is a precision livestock technology company focused on transforming animal behavior data into actionable insights on animal health, welfare, and productivity, as well as farm sustainability. The AgriGates platform enables ethical, transparent, and scalable behavioral intelligence for livestock agriculture through integrated sensing, data infrastructure, and machine learning tools.
Media Contact:
Daniel Foy
CEO, AgriGates
info@agrigates.io
https://www.agrigates.io