SAN FRANCISCO— Geospatial intelligence startup Atlas AI announced collaboration Aug. 13 with multinational aircraft manufacturer Airbus SE.
Airbus is relying on Atlas AI’s geospatial platform, which pairs satellite imagery with artificial intelligence, to gain insight into travel demand, airport catchment areas and infrastructure change.
“By partnering with Airbus SE, we’re leveraging our GeoAI platform to provide hyperlocal demand forecasts in rapidly growing travel markets such as the Asia-Pacific region,” Tarapani said in a statement. “Our platform’s predictive capabilities allow Airbus to anticipate market dynamics and infrastructure needs with unprecedented granularity. This collaboration demonstrates how AI-driven insights can inform strategic decision-making in highly dynamic and diverse markets, enabling Airbus to optimize their planning and resource allocation in these emerging aviation hubs.”
Atlas AI, a 2018 spinoff from Stanford University’s Sustainability and Artificial Intelligence Lab, specializes in applying AI techniques to satellite imagery to measure local socioeconomic conditions in emerging markets.
“The satellite image gives us as a significant historical trend and the ability to detect real-time changes,” Atlas AI CEO Abe Tarapani told SpaceNews. “When all of that is combined into our platform, it allows you to forecast what will likely be true in the future.”
Hyperlocal Forecasting
Forecasting change is more important than ever, Tarapani said, because of current economic and climate shifts, as well as other events like conflicts. “We don’t have the systems today to keep track of the impact at the level of 8 billion people living around the world,” he added.
Atlas AI works extensively with nonprofit agencies like Nutrition International and large organizations like Airbus.
“It’s no longer sufficient to look at a country and estimate what is likely to be true tomorrow or a year from now because that country is made up of tens of thousands of individual communities,” Tarapani said. “Each one has their own dynamics that are impacting their trajectory and the risk and opportunity associated with doing business or investing or supporting those places. AI, with the amount of computational power and the complexity of these models, allows us to look at millions of individual communities as unique entities.”
Atlas AI’s platform ingests “petabytes of satellite imagery, mobility data, demographic trends, infrastructure, land use” and energy market information, according to the news release.
Airbus and Atlas AI began working together about a year ago.
“With any large global partner, we typically start by demonstrating that the technology actually works and can work at scale,” Trapani said. Atlas AI is now supporting new Airbus strategic initiatives.
Atlas AI has raised about $11 million to date. Airbus Ventures, which operates independently from Airbus, backs aerospace-related startups. Airbus Ventures is an Atlas AI investor.
