Kristen Smith
IBM and NASA have released Surya, a new open-source artificial intelligence foundation model that interprets high-resolution solar observation data and supports space weather forecasting research. The new AI model, available on Hugging Face, is designed to help experts plan for solar storms and their impact on telecommunications, GPS navigation, satellites and power grids amid humanity’s growing technological dependence, IBM said.
Anticipating Growing Risks to Modern Technology
Solar flares and coronal mass ejections can disable satellites, interrupt airline navigation, trigger widespread power outages and pose radiation hazards to astronauts. A Lloyd’s risk scenario projected that a solar storm could expose the global economy to $2.4 trillion in losses over five years, with $17 billion in expected losses from a single solar storm event.
“Think of this as a weather forecast for space,” said Juan Bernabe-Moreno, director of IBM Research Europe, UK and Ireland. “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.”
Building a New Tool for Heliophysics
Trained on nine years of data from NASA’s Solar Dynamics Observatory, Surya processed solar images 10 times larger than typical AI datasets. IBM created a custom multi-architecture system to handle the scale, producing a model with spatial resolution that can detect solar features at scales and contexts not previously captured in large-scale AI training workflows. Early testing revealed a 16 percent improvement in solar flare classification accuracy and, for the first time, the ability to visually predict flares up to two hours in advance.
“By developing a foundation model trained on NASA’s heliophysics data, we’re making it easier to analyze the complexities of the Sun’s behavior with unprecedented speed and precision,” said Kevin Murphy, NASA’s chief science data officer.
Democratizing Access to Space Weather AI
IBM and NASA released Surya on Hugging Face to enable researchers worldwide to use the model for developing applications tailored to regional and industry needs. Surya builds on the Prithvi family of foundation models, which includes geospatial and weather models for scientists to develop short- and long-term weather and climate projections.
