The European Space Agency (ESA) has awarded CGI a contract to develop a food system digital twin precursor as part of its Digital Twin Earth programme.
The company will develop a prototype to demonstrate the value of using the concept – a digital replica of the relevant systems – to better understand the productivity and resilience of global food systems.
Digital Twin Earth (DTE) is planned to be a dynamic, high resolution reconstruction of the Earth and its complex processes to support advanced science based decision making. It is planned to enable a predictive and simulation capacity to respond to the environmental challenges facing the planet.
The Food Systems Digital Twin will explore possible improvements in routine monitoring, taking into account factors such as responses to crop shortages due to extreme, and aiding in long term policy development for incentives for types of agricultural production.
CGI will build the precursor using its AI enabled data platform technology, bringing together multiple datasets including socio-economic and physical measurements.
The design will involve an industrial and scientific team including Oxford University Innovation, Trillium and the International Institute for Applied Systems analysis. A range of stakeholders will also contribute to the project.
Major challenge
Gordon Campbell at ESA said: ‘‘This is an extremely challenging development activity linking diverse analysis capabilities to provide a step change in the information available to decision makers in domains such as food security, protecting ecosystems and biodiversity, planning energy production and managing resource utilisation within the framework of the European Green Deal.
“The range of competencies within the team is well suited to addressing this challenge and developing a prototype system to enable target stakeholders to explore the opportunities afforded by these new analysis tools.”
Image from NASA, CC BY 2.0
