IBM and NASA’s foundation model Surya is designed to predict how solar activity affects Earth and space-based technology. Photo: IBM

IBM and NASA have released a new open-source foundation model called Surya that is designed to predict how solar activity affects Earth and space-based technology. 

Surya, announced this week, has been released on Surya on AI platform Hugging Face to democratize access. The model will provide tools to help experts plan for solar storms, which can cause damage to satellites, damaging onboard solar panels and circuits, and even impact airline travel. 

IBM said it is the first heliophysics AI foundation model trained on high-resolution solar observation data. Researchers reported a 16% improvement in accuracy in classifying solar flares, by using the model in early testing. 

“Think of this as a weather forecast for space,” said Juan Bernabe-Moreno, director of IBM Research Europe, UK and Ireland. “Just as we work to prepare for hazardous weather events, we need to do the same for solar storms. Surya gives us unprecedented capability to anticipate what’s coming and is not just a technological achievement, but a critical step toward protecting our technological civilization from the star that sustains us.”

In 2023, IBM released a geospatial foundation model called watzonx.ai on Hugging Face, built on NASA’s satellite data. Last year, IBM and NASA also released the Prithvi weather model for weather and climate projections.