California technology startup Anduril has teamed up with the Trump government to build a virtual wall along the US-Mexico border. The US Customs and Border Protection has signed a five-year agreement with the company. It is expected to curb illegal crossings from Mexico. 

While Democrats had proposed for a long time smart technology as a cheap and effective alternative to Trump’s idea of a concrete and steel wall, he had ridiculed them. 

“What are you going to do? Take pictures of everyone flowing across?” he had asked in response last month. US administration has already spent $9.9 billion dollars for the construction of a concrete wall. 

As reported by the Washington Post, the company would use hundreds of solar-powered mobile surveillance towers across the area. It is also known that with the help of cameras and thermal imagining, they would spot moving objects to feed an artificial intelligence system that can differentiate between animals, humans and vehicles. From here, the information would be directed to the cell phones of US patrol agents.

While the actual deal is not revealed yet, Anduril executive had said that the agreement is worth several hundred million dollars. 

The company is planning to deploy close to 200 surveillance towers by 2022. Between October and May, 228,818 individuals were apprehended at the border.