International Business Machines Corporation IBM and NASA unveiled a new artificial intelligence foundation model on Wednesday, designed to analyze solar data and enhance space weather forecasting. The model, named Surya after the Sanskrit word for the Sun, aims to provide earlier and more accurate predictions of solar activity that could disrupt life on Earth and in space.
The model is trained to interpret massive volumes of high-resolution images from NASA’s Solar Dynamics Observatory.
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These images help predict solar flares, solar winds, and coronal mass ejections that can affect satellites, power grids, GPS navigation, and telecommunications.
By spotting patterns, the tool can issue earlier warnings to safeguard critical infrastructure.
Though the Sun is distant, solar disturbances can provoke immediate problems. Past events have disrupted airline navigation, forced reroutes, and damaged satellites.
A Lloyd’s systemic risk scenario estimated global losses could reach $2.4 trillion over five years from a severe solar storm, underscoring the need for better forecasting.
Researchers report that Surya improves solar flare classification accuracy by 16% versus earlier methods.
The model can also visually predict where a flare is likely to occur up to two hours in advance—giving scientists and operators more time to prepare.
Training Surya drew on nine years of NASA solar imagery, with files roughly ten times larger than typical AI datasets.
IBM built custom, multi-architecture systems to process the data efficiently, yielding unprecedented spatial resolution that captures solar features previously difficult to model.
Kevin Murphy, NASA’s chief science data officer, said the model enables faster and more precise analysis of solar behavior.
Surya builds on IBM and NASA’s prior work, including the Prithvi family of geospatial and weather models.
The model will be available on Hugging Face, allowing researchers worldwide to adapt it to their specific needs.
Price Action: IBM shares are trading higher by 0.01% to $241.31 at last check on Wednesday.
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