As per reliable sources, Hugging Face and IBM jointly announced that the geospatial foundation model, watsonx.ai, created by IBM using NASA's satellite data, will now be accessible on the Hugging Face open-source AI platform. This marks a significant milestone as it becomes the largest geospatial foundation model available on Hugging Face and the first-ever open-source AI foundation model developed in partnership with NASA.
Climate science faces the challenge of accessing up-to-date data, with environmental conditions constantly changing. Despite the increasing volume of data, scientists and researchers encounter obstacles in analyzing vast datasets. To address this, IBM entered into a Space Act Agreement with NASA for the development of an AI foundation model that can be used for geospatial data. As this geospatial foundation model will be available on Hugging Face, a renowned repository for transformer models, the collaboration will help democratize access to AI and foster new innovations in climate and Earth science.
Jeff Boudier, head of product and growth at Hugging Face, highlights that information sharing and collaboration are fundamental to the progress of AI, making it accessible to a broader audience. Sriram Raghavan, Vice President of IBM Research AI, emphasizes the importance of open-source technologies that help to accelerate critical areas like climate change.
This development is part of IBM's commitment to building and training AI models that can be applied across different tasks and scenarios. In alignment with NASA's decade-long Open-Source Science Initiative, 2023 has been designated as the Year of Open Science, aiming to create a more accessible and inclusive scientific community through the open sharing of data and knowledge.
IBM's watsonx.ai platform, along with the geospatial model, is part of the larger IBM Environmental Intelligence Suite (EIS), enabling enterprises to leverage advanced AI with reliable data. A commercial version of the geospatial model will be available through EIS later this year. This collaboration signifies a step forward in utilizing AI to tackle crucial global challenges and promote scientific discovery.