Today, the European Commission unveiled the initial iteration of Destination Earth (DestinE), an AI-driven simulator designed to increase the precision of climate projections.
Two models—one for extreme weather events and another for adapting to climate change—are included in the initial edition of DestinE. With the use of these models, the Earth’s climate will be closely observed, predicted, and simulated.
According to EU antitrust chief Margrethe Vestager, “DestinE means that we can observe environmental challenges which can help us predict future scenarios – like we have never done before.”
The LUMI supercomputer located in Finland is one of the high-performance computers (EuroHPC) that power DestinE. To accelerate data processing, the developers have integrated this with AI.
Vestager stated, “This first phase shows how much we can achieve when Europe puts together its massive supercomputing power and its scientific excellence.”
The main model will, however, probably change over time, and by the end of this decade, a digital duplicate of the Earth should be finished.
Digital Twin of the Earth
Want to test how a heatwave will impact food security? Or if a storm will flood a certain city? Or the best places to position your wind farm? All of that could be possible using the digital twin of the Earth.
The digital twin uses a sizable data lake to fuel its simulations and forecasts. Satellites like those used in the EU’s Copernicus program are the source of this data. It will also originate from vast amounts of public data as well as IoT devices situated on the ground.
Future iterations of the digital twin of Earth will incorporate data from forests, cities, and oceans, pretty much anyplace on Earth that scientists can analyze data.
In 2022, the EU launched DestinE for the first time. The digital twin will be constructed with funding exceeding €300 million.
With today’s launch, the first phase comes to a conclusion and the second phase begins, with a combined funding commitment of over €150 million for both.
As the final Digital Europe program 2025–2027 is presently being prepared, its approval will determine the funding for the third stage.
Organizations working on this kind of technology are not limited to the EU. The Earth-2 digital replica was introduced by Nvidia in March. As stated by the powerhouse in chip manufacturing, the model is currently being used by the Taiwanese government to more accurately forecast when typhoons will hit land.