Google DeepMind Introduces AlphaEarth Foundations: A Virtual Satellite AI Model for Scientists to Make Critical Decisions
Google DeepMind has now introduced AlphaEarth Foundations as its new AI model that acts and functions like a virtual satellite. This new AI model is intended to combine large amounts of Earth observation data into a simple digital representation so as to help scientists make informed decisions on critical matters.
Check out more about it and how it works below.
Google DeepMind’s AlphaEarth Foundations Introduced
As mentioned, the newly-introduced AlphaEarth Foundations from Google DeepMind is an AI model which functions as a virtual satellite for its users. It primarily helps in effectively and accurately combining large amounts of data of the Earth’s terrestrial land as well as coastal waters, and it then coverts it into a unified digital representation that can easily be processed within a computer. The main purpose of the AI model is thus to assist scientists and help them in making informed decisions on matters such as food security, deforestation, water resources, urban expansion, and more, freeing them for challenges concerning data overload and inconsistent information.
About its functioning, what the AlphaEarth Foundations AI model does is that, as mentioned it combines information from plenty sources and analyzes the land and coastal waters in 10 x 10 meters square. This allows it to have remarkable precision while tracking changes that have happened over a particular period of time. Notably, for each square, the AI model creates a highly compact summary which together will only require 16 times lesser storage when compared to that produced by other AI models. Further, making use of the received data, scientists will be able to create detailed and consistent maps of the planet when needed.
Speaking more, Google DeepMind’s latest AlphaEarth Foundations is a result of its year-long research, and so far the brand has worked with 50+ organizations for its development and testing. As part of the AlphaEarth Foundations launch, Google DeepMind has also released its annual collection of embeddings in the Google Earth Engine as ‘Satellite Embedding Dataset’. The use case of this dataset is immense and already the brand’s partners have experienced significant benefits relying on it.
