IBM, NASA Launch Open-Source Geospatial AI Model

BM’s watsonx.ai geospatial foundation model is now openly available on AI platform Hugging Face. The model, built from NASA’s satellite data, was created in an effort to democratize access and application of AI to generate new innovations in climate and Earth science, the software giant says.

"The essential role of open-source technologies to accelerate critical areas of discovery such as climate change has never been clearer," Sriram Raghavan, vice president, IBM research AI, said in a statement. "By combining IBM's foundation model efforts aimed at creating flexible, reusable AI systems with NASA's repository of Earth-satellite data, and making it available on the leading open-source AI platform, Hugging Face, we can leverage the power of collaboration to implement faster and more impactful solutions that will improve our planet."

According to IBM, watsonx.ai was trained jointly by IBM and NASA on Harmonized Landsat Sentinel-2 satellite data over one year across the continental United States, and fine-tuned on labeled data for flood and burn-scar mapping. The company intends for the model to be redeployed for such tasks as tracking deforestation, predicting crop yields, or detecting and monitoring greenhouse gasses.

"AI remains a science-driven field, and science can only progress through information sharing and collaboration," said Jeff Boudier, head of product and growth at Hugging Face. "This is why open-source AI and the open release of models and datasets are so fundamental to the continued progress of AI, and making sure the technology will benefit as many people as possible."

NASA, along with the White House and other federal agencies, has declared 2023 a Year of Open Science to celebrate the benefits and successes created through the open sharing of data, information and knowledge.

"We believe that foundation models have the potential to change the way observational data is analyzed and help us to better understand our planet," said Kevin Murphy, chief science data officer, NASA. "And by open sourcing such models and making them available to the world, we hope to multiply their impact."