China has announced a groundbreaking development in lunar exploration with the unveiling of the world’s first professional multimodal large language model (LLM) for lunar science. This innovative AI model is poised to significantly accelerate the processing of massive amounts of lunar data, marking a major milestone in space exploration and research.
The new tool was introduced at the China International Big Data Industry Expo in Guiyang, the capital of Guizhou Province in southwest China. Developed collaboratively by the Institute of Geochemistry of the Chinese Academy of Sciences and the Alibaba Cloud Intelligence Group, the LLM is designed to enhance the capabilities of China’s “digital moon” platform.
The Institute of Geochemistry has constructed a comprehensive digital moon platform, housing the world’s most complete repository of data related to lunar exploration. The introduction of the LLM provides this platform with a “smart brain,” enabling more efficient analysis and interpretation of lunar data.
Ku Wei, vice president of Alibaba Cloud Intelligence Group, explained that the LLM can identify lunar craters and catalog them by size, depth, and shape. “This provides scientists with crucial information for studying the moon’s geological evolution,” Ku said.
With over one million lunar craters exceeding one kilometer in diameter and countless smaller ones, manual identification of these features is unfeasible. “Identifying all these craters manually would be impossible,” noted Liu Jianzhong, a researcher at the Institute of Geochemistry.
Now, researchers can simply input an image of a lunar crater, and the LLM will determine its shape, size, and age with remarkable accuracy. “The accuracy rate is more than 80 percent, exceeding our expectations,” Liu said.
Scientists emphasize that advancements in planetary science rely heavily on both deep space exploration technology and data processing capabilities. The integration of AI into lunar research represents a significant step forward in harnessing big data for scientific discovery.
“Scientific research driven by big data is transforming the development of science and technology,” Liu remarked. “The intelligence of the digital moon will accelerate China’s lunar and planetary scientific research and innovation.”
Liu likened the LLM to a highly intelligent child. “We train and teach the child professional things. I personally believe that this child’s intelligence may have reached the university sophomore level. We will let it continue to grow and help us solve more scientific problems,” he said.
The deployment of this AI model not only enhances China’s capabilities in lunar exploration but also contributes to the global understanding of the moon’s geological history, potentially paving the way for future space missions and discoveries.
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Chinese scientists unveil world's first AI model for lunar exploration
cgtn.com
