NVIDIA launches Earth-2 cloud platform to tackle climate change
What's the story
NVIDIA has taken a significant step forward in the fight against climate change, unveiling its Earth-2 digital twin cloud platform at the Nvidia GTC 2024 event. This innovative platform, first announced in 2021, harnesses the power of AI supercomputers to simulate and visualize global weather and climate patterns. NVIDIA's CEO, Jensen Huang, stated that the goal is to better equip ourselves for extreme weather events that are becoming increasingly common due to climate change.
Target
Harnessing advanced technology for climate simulations with Earth-2
Earth-2 is a versatile software capable of operating on various supercomputers. Its forecasting prowess hinges on the computing power available. As part of NVIDIA's CUDA-X microservices software suite, Earth-2 employs cutting-edge AI models and the CorrDiff generative AI model, to generate high-resolution simulations at a speed and energy efficiency far surpassing current numerical models. The objective is to predict climate change trends for decades ahead.
Goals
Reducing economic losses from weather events
Rev Lebaredian, NVIDIA's Vice President of simulation, underscored that extreme weather events result in $140 billion in economic losses each year. He stressed the importance of kilometer-scale simulations for making a substantial impact. Earth-2 aims to deliver such detailed simulations via a cloud platform accessible to government agencies, weather forecasters, and prediction agencies to expedite weather prediction processes. It promises models that are faster and more energy-efficient than existing numerical weather prediction methods.
Work
Enhancing disaster preparedness and response
The APIs provided by Earth-2 enable users to generate interactive simulations of global atmospheric conditions and local weather phenomena, facilitating real-time forecasts and warnings. Taiwan's Central Weather Administration is among the first to utilize Earth-2's diffusion models for enhanced typhoon forecasts. The goal is to reduce casualties through timely evacuations. By leveraging NVIDIA's advanced generative AI technology, Earth-2 has the potential to transform disaster preparedness and response strategies, potentially saving lives in areas prone to extreme weather events.
Usage
NVIDIA Omniverse integration and early adopters
Earth-2 seamlessly integrates with NVIDIA Omniverse, enabling organizations like The Weather Company to create 3D workflows that incorporate actual weather data for improved analysis. The Weather Company plans to use Earth-2 APIs to generate high-resolution simulations and develop new weather modeling products. Other early adopters of Earth-2 APIs include weather analytics platforms Spire and Meteomatics, as well as start-ups exploring climate tech solutions, indicating widespread interest in the platform's potential applications.
Result
Impact of Earth-2 on climate tech industry
When combined with proprietary data owned by companies in the $20 billion climate tech industry, Earth-2's application programming interfaces can deliver warnings and updated forecasts in mere seconds. This represents a significant improvement over traditional CPU-driven modeling that can take minutes or even hours. With Taiwan experiencing more than 136 typhoons since 2000, Earth-2's role in enhancing disaster informatics is seen as critical for regions susceptible to extreme weather events.