The U.S. Air Force has awarded WindBorne Systems a contract to supply data from its autonomous weather balloons. The agreement has a ceiling of $49 million, but the Air Force pays only for data it requests and has ordered $1.7 million worth so far.
WindBorne has about 700 balloons collecting atmospheric readings worldwide. The Redwood City, California, company sells those readings to customers and uses them in its own AI weather forecasting model. The Air Force can request data for specific places and times.
Founded in 2015, WindBorne has previously worked with the National Weather Service and the Air Force and Navy. This is its largest contract to date. The award was made without competitive bidding; co-founder and technology chief Andrey Sushko said WindBorne was the only company able to meet the government's requirements for collecting global data.
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