Digital earth platform to help companies, public

China's self-developed digital earth platform, which aims to become the Chinese version of Google Earth, made its debut on Thursday, as the country strives to grow its aerospace information sector for a foothold in the next generation of tech competition globally.

Digital earth makes use of data from satellites to create a visual map of what is happening at every point on earth. Such data can be used to empower various industries.

The platform — dubbed Geovis Earth Brain — has been developed by Geovis Earth Technology Co Ltd, a subsidiary of digital earth solutions provider Geovis, which is backed by the Chinese Academy of Sciences.

At a time when OpenAI's artificial intelligence chatbot ChatGPT has taken the tech world by storm, Geovis Earth Brain has been developed based on the world's first generative self-supervised basic model for remote sensing data RingMo, which the company said is one of the most advanced models in this field.

The average performance index of the model in 12 international remote sensing standards has reached advanced levels, it said. With an accuracy rate of over 90 percent, the model will be able to interpret high-precision earth data.

It is for the first time that a digital earth platform has integrated data, algorithms and computing resources, and is able to offer high-quality space and earth data services, including remote sensing applications, for both companies and individuals, said Tang Deke, executive vice-president of Geovis Earth Technology Co Ltd.

Shao Zongyou, president of Geovis, added in an interview that the company aims to become the "Chinese version of Google Earth" by 2025 and allow more individual consumers to use such services. By 2028, it will further expand into overseas markets.

"We hope to leverage digital earth technologies to empower 20,000 companies this year, and the public can use the air and space infrastructure just like water and electricity," he said.

According to a report by China Economic Information Service, the country's aerospace information sector has become a fast-growing industry over the past few years.

The foundation of the aerospace information sector has been further consolidated in China, the industrial chain has been continuously extended, and the ability of independent innovation has continued to improve, according to the report.

Wu Yirong, an academician at the Chinese Academy of Sciences, said that aerospace information has become a strategic emerging sector with digital earth being one of the most challenging and cutting-edge tech battlegrounds.

"It can not only provide technical support for a country's macro decision-making but also play a major role in global climate change, international disaster reduction, scientific and technological innovation, and education," he said.

Jiang Rui contributed to this story.