Advertisement
Google claims it is beating Huawei in global weather prediction with AI
- Results of a study have shown Google’s weather prediction model GraphCast performed better than Huawei’s Pangu-Weather in most tests
- Competition between China and the US in machine learning weather prediction has seen companies from both countries leapfrogging each other
Reading Time:3 minutes
Why you can trust SCMP
3
Zhang Tongin Beijing
Google’s DeepMind research institute has unveiled its latest weather prediction model, GraphCast, which boasts superior accuracy and speed compared to the records set by Chinese tech giant Huawei Technologies.
In recent test results GraphCast claimed it exceeded the performance of Pangu-Weather in most test scenarios though Huawei’s Pangu-Weather model was still leading in some of the benchmarks, such as time-resolution where it has a smaller time gap between each prediction.
The GraphCast model was trained and operated on 7nm chips, while Pangu-Weather used 12nm. The US government has imposed strict sanctions on Huawei’s access to advanced AI chips.
In comparative tests, both models outdid the High Resolution Forecast (HRES) system, a long-standing industry standard by the European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts (ECMWF).
These impressive results were documented in a study by 18 researchers from Google DeepMind and Google Research, and published on Friday in the latest issue of peer-reviewed journal Science.
This development marks another chapter in the artificial intelligence competition between China and the US, especially in the field of machine learning-based weather prediction (MLWP), where companies from both nations have been leapfrogging each other’s achievements.
Advertisement