The ESA Φ-lab Newsletter #15 | January 2025

QUANTUM COMPUTING FOR EARTH OBSERVATION: A BOLD PATH FORWARD WITH ESA Φ-LAB

Dear Φ-lab community,

With the new year in motion and the holidays behind us, we are excited to share some fresh news to kick off 2025. At ESA Φ-lab, innovation continues at full speed, and we are thrilled to announce the latest developments at the intersection of Quantum Computing and Earth Observation.

The Quantum Computing for Earth Observation (QC4EO) initiative has been set up to tackle the most computationally demanding EO problems, with the much-anticipated Quantum Computing capabilities of the next computer generation. QC promises to improve performance, decrease computational costs and solve problems in EO by exploiting quantum phenomena such as superposition, entanglement and tunnelling.

In collaboration with several research centres and companies, the QC4EO initiative is aiming at the creation of QC competences at ESA to support programmes like Destination Earth (DestinE), the Digital Twin of Earth, Copernicus, and the full EO community.

This initiative will follow three main roots: contractual activities (e.g., invitation to tender), exploratory activities (e.g., internal research and development) and networking (e.g., through workshops and conferences).

Building on top of QC4EO and QA4EO study, Φ-lab launched a new industrial activity: Towards Operational Quantum Computing for Earth Observation. This new activity aims to implement in simulation QC4EO use cases and test the simulated solution on real hardware with an operational focus.

Additionally, together with visiting professor Gabriele Cavallaro, Φ-lab will be part of a new technical committee in the IEEE Geoscience and Remote Sensing Society about Quantum Technologies for Earth Observation. Representing Φ-lab, Alessandro Sebastianelli will be leading the working group – a branch of the technical committee – on QC4EO. Stay tuned for more news at grss-ieee.org.

And as always, watch this space for more news about groundbreaking advancements in EO.

Wishing you all a great 2025!

The Φ-lab team

LATEST FROM THE LAB

ESA EARTH OBSERVATION COMMERCIALISATION FORUM

27-28 November – The 2024 ESA Earth Observation Commercialisation Forum, hosted at KAP Europa in Frankfurt on 27-28 November, brought together investors, institutions, entrepreneurs and companies of all sizes from the Earth Observation (EO) sector. The event provided a platform to explore the commercial opportunities and challenges within the industry.

Φ-lab is launching a Grand Marathon, calling for innovators using Earth Observation data to address the impact of climate change on the spread of infectious diseases. With a cumulative prize of €295.000, the top 3 finalists will have the opportunity to attend the Hello Tomorrow Global Summit in Paris, and the winner will attend ESA’s Living Planet Symposium in Vienna. Apply by 12 January 2025.

2-6 December – Φ-lab was present at the Very-High Resolution Radar & Optical Data Assessment (VH-RODA), held in ESRIN. The team prepared and guided the audience through some of Φ-lab’s existing Virtual Reality (VR) experiences, such as Digital Twin ESRIN and Digital Twin Φ-lab, which attracted enthusiastic attention from the attendees.

10 December – ESA Φ-lab, together with Cloudferro, launched the first global embedding dataset for Earth Observation. Generated through Major TOM, these embeddings transform vast amounts of satellite imagery into efficient, high-dimensional vector data representations, enabling smarter and faster analysis of EO data at an unprecedented scale.

11 December – Using advanced machine learning techniques, an international team of scientists, coordinated by ESA Φ-lab and FDL Europe, has leveraged advanced machine learning techniques to develop a method for generating ‘3D cloud profiles everywhere, all at once’.

Supported by ESA Φ-lab, Pi School is developing EVE (Earth Virtual Expert), an innovative Large Language Model (LLM) virtual expert focused on Earth Observation and Earth Sciences. This exciting interface will change how we access and interact with Earth Observation data.

Next ESA InCubed Portugal National Call focusing on ‘Earth Observation for Municipalities’

Supported by InCubed, the Portuguese Space Agency has announced a call for innovative projects to modernise Portuguese cities through the use of Earth Observation (EO) technologies. This InCubed call has a total budget of €1.5 million. The deadlines for the first and second cycle of applications are 12 March and 2 June 2025, respectively.

ESA has signed a letter of intent with Altair to encourage the development of Earth observation (EO) commercial products and services. The collaboration will target companies supported by ESA Φ-lab, the InCubed EO commercialisation programme, ESA-PhiLabNET, ESA Business Incubation Centres (ESA BICs) and ESA Technology Brokers, within the ESA Partnership Initiative for Commercialisation (EPIC) framework

Every second counts when disaster strikes. Whether it is a wildfire or an earthquake, extracting crucial information from satellite data in a fast way is paramount for an effective emergency response. Supported by ESA Φ-lab, the MAPTCHA project will revolutionise the way first responders make informed decisions and potentially save lives during natural catastrophes.

5-7 May – This workshop on Foundation Models (FMs) for Earth Observation and Earth Sciences aims to address challenges by bringing together experts from AI, geospatial science, climate, weather and Earth Observation communities. The abstract submission deadline is 31 January 2025, 23:59 CET, and registrations open in March 2025.