An open-source foundation model named Surya predicts violent solar flare activity and broader space weather to protect satellites, spacecraft, power grids, and internet infrastructure. The model was developed by IBM and NASA in collaboration with eight other research centers and trained on nine years of Solar Dynamics Observatory (SDO) data. Surya aims to anticipate solar behavior and generate actionable warnings. Early tests show a 16 percent improvement in solar flare classification accuracy compared with previous methods. The work draws on historical risk such as the 1859 Carrington Event to motivate preparation for damaging geomagnetic storms.
Boffins at IBM and NASA have concocted an AI model to help predict the weather, but this time it is taking on space weather that might disrupt satellites and spacecraft, possibly even terrestrial power grids and the internet. IBM's hope is that the model has learned enough of the Sun's behavior so that it is able to generate actionable insights - in other words, warn of impending danger
A famous example of solar activity causing havoc is the Carrington Event of 1859, when a geomagnetic storm caused telegraph systems in Europe and North America to fail, sometimes catching fire because of induced currents. Modern-day electronic infrastructure is much more complex and sensitive. The Surya model has been trained using nine years' worth of data from NASA's Solar Dynamics Observatory (SDO) satellite, which has been closely monitoring the Sun for some time.
Collection
[
|
...
]