Latest news with #Doksuri
Indian Express
5 days ago
- Science
- Indian Express
Microsoft's AI model Aurora can now predict air quality at high speed and precision
Microsoft's foundational AI model for weather forecasting has been upgraded and can now accurately predict air quality as well. Aurora has been developed by Microsoft Research to forecast a range of weather-related phenomena such as hurricanes, typhoons, etc, with greater precision and speed than traditional meteorological methods, the company said in a blog post earlier this week. It has also published a research paper on Aurora in science journal Nature. Microsoft further said that Aurora's source code and model weights are now publicly available. A specialised version of the model that produces hourly forecasts, including for clouds, has been integrated into the MSN Weather app. The Windows maker has claimed that Aurora is one of the top-performing AI models in the field of weather forecasting. 'What sets Aurora apart is that it is originally trained as a foundation model and can then be specialized through finetuning to go beyond what is considered traditional weather forecasting, such as air pollution prediction,' Microsoft said. 'Because the model first learns from a large and diverse set of data, it can be fine-tuned with smaller amounts of air quality data,' it added. Aurora has been trained on over a million hours of data captured by satellites, radar and weather stations as well as past weather simulations and forecasts, the company said. The AI model can be fine-tuned using additional data to provide forecasts about specific weather events. Its underlying encoder architecture helps to translate massive amounts of data drawn from multiple sources into a standard format that the AI model uses to make predictions. 'We're not putting in strict rules about how we think variables should interact with each other. We're just giving a large deep-learning model the option to learn whatever is most useful. This is the power of deep learning in these kind of simulation problems,' Megan Stanley, a senior researcher with Microsoft Research, said. Microsoft claimed that its Aurora AI model accurately predicted the landfall of Typhoon Doksuri in Philippines four days in advance and better than some expert predictions. The model also successfully predicted a sandstorm in Iraq two years ago. It beat the US National Hurricane Center by providing accurate five-day forecasts of tropical cyclone paths in 2022 and 2023, as per the company. Aurora, which draws compute power from graphics processing units (GPUs), provides weather forecasts in seconds compared to hourly predictions by traditional weather systems running on supercomputers. While the initial cost involved in training Aurora was high, Microsoft said its operational expenses are lower than traditional weather forecast systems. AI weather models like Aurora are not entirely new. Over the past few years, Google DeepMind has released several AI models designed for weather forecasting such as WeatherNext.
Express Tribune
6 days ago
- Science
- Express Tribune
Microsoft says new Aurora AI model can accurately forecast weather changes
Microsoft says new Aurora AI model can accurately forecast weather changes Microsoft says its latest AI system, Aurora, can predict typhoons, hurricanes, sandstorms, and air quality events more accurately and significantly faster than traditional forecasting methods, according to a new research paper and blog post released this week. The company published details of the Aurora model in Nature, citing major improvements in forecast accuracy and efficiency. Trained on more than a million hours of satellite, radar, and ground station data, Aurora is designed to anticipate atmospheric events across the globe and can be fine-tuned for specific weather scenarios. A new paper published in Nature explains how Microsoft's Aurora AI foundation model goes beyond weather forecasting to more accurately predict a range of environmental events, from hurricanes and typhoons to air quality and ocean waves. — Microsoft Research (@MSFTResearch) May 21, 2025 In tests, Microsoft says Aurora predicted the landfall of Typhoon Doksuri in the Philippines four days in advance — outperforming several expert forecasts. The model also outpaced the US National Hurricane Center in tracking tropical cyclones over the 2022–2023 season and correctly anticipated a major sandstorm in Iraq in 2022. While AI-based weather forecasting is not new — Google DeepMind's WeatherNext is another example — Microsoft positions Aurora as among the most advanced models publicly available. The company has also released Aurora's source code and model weights, opening it to researchers and developers. Microsoft reports that, despite its large training set and the infrastructure required to build it, Aurora runs highly efficiently. Forecasts are generated in seconds, compared to hours required by legacy supercomputer-based systems. A specialised version of the model will be integrated into Microsoft's MSN Weather app, providing hourly updates and cloud forecasts. The development is seen as a potential game-changer for meteorologists and climate scientists, offering faster and possibly more accurate tools for understanding extreme weather patterns and air quality.
Yahoo
7 days ago
- Science
- Yahoo
Microsoft says its Aurora AI can accurately predict air quality, typhoons, and more
One of Microsoft's latest AI models can accurately predict air quality, hurricanes, typhoons, and other weather-related phenomena, the company claims. In a paper published in the journal Nature and an accompanying blog post this week, Microsoft detailed Aurora, which the tech giant says can forecast atmospheric events with greater precision and speed than traditional meteorological approaches. Aurora, which has been trained on more than a million hours of data from satellites, radar and weather stations, simulations, and forecasts, can be fine-tuned with additional data to make predictions for particular weather events. AI weather models are nothing new. Google DeepMind has released a handful over the past several years, including WeatherNext, which the lab claims beats some of the world's best forecasting systems. Microsoft is positioning Aurora as one of the field's top performers — and a potential boon for labs studying weather science. In experiments, Aurora predicted Typhoon Doksuri's landfall in the Philippines four days in advance of the actual event, beating some expert predictions, Microsoft says. The model also bested the National Hurricane Center in forecasting five-day tropical cyclone tracks for the 2022-2023 season, and successfully predicted the 2022 Iraq sandstorm. While Aurora required substantial computing infrastructure to train, Microsoft says the model is highly efficient to run. It generates forecasts in seconds compared to the hours traditional systems take using supercomputer hardware. Microsoft, which has made the source code and model weights publicly available, says that it's incorporating Aurora's AI modeling into its MSN Weather app via a specialized version of the model that produces hourly forecasts, including for clouds.
The Hindu
22-05-2025
- Science
- The Hindu
Microsoft AI weather forecast faster, cheaper, truer: study
Microsoft has developed an artificial intelligence (AI) model that beats current forecasting methods in tracking air quality, weather patterns, and climate-addled tropical storms, according to findings published Wednesday. Dubbed Aurora, the new system, which has not been commercialised, generated 10-day weather forecasts and predicted hurricane trajectories more accurately and faster than traditional forecasting, and at lower costs, researchers reported in the journal Nature. "For the first time, an AI system can outperform all operational centres for hurricane forecasting," said senior author Paris Perdikaris, an associate professor of mechanical engineering at the University of Pennsylvania. Trained only on historical data, Aurora was able to correctly forecast all hurricanes in 2023 more accurately than operational forecasting centres, such as the U.S. National Hurricane Center. Traditional weather predicting models are designed on first physical principles, such as conservation of mass, momentum and energy, and require massive computer power. The computational costs of Aurora were several hundred times lower, the study said. The experimental results follow on the heels of the Pangu-Weather AI model developed and unveiled by Chinese tech giant Huawei in 2023, and could herald a paradigm shift in how the world's major weather agencies forecast weather and potentially deadly extreme events exacerbated by global warming. "I believe that we're at the beginning of a transformation age in air system science," Perdikaris said in a video presentation distributed by Nature. "In the next five to 10 years the holy grail is how to build systems that can directly work with observations from remote sensing sources like satellites and weather stations to generate forecasts at high resolution anywhere we like." According to its designers, Aurora is the first AI model to consistently outperform seven forecasting centres in predicting the five-day trajectory of devastating cyclones. In its simulation, for example, Aurora correctly forecast four days in advance where and when Doksuri, the most costly typhoon ever recorded in the Pacific, would hit the Philippines. Official forecasts at the time, in 2023, had it heading north of Taiwan. Microsoft's AI model also outperformed the European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts (ECMWF) model in 92 percent of cases for 10-day global forecasts, on a scale of approximately 10 square kilometres (3.86 square miles). The ECMWF, which provides forecasts for 35 European countries, is considered the global benchmark for weather accuracy. In December, Google announced that its GenCast model had surpassed the European centre's accuracy in more than 97 percent of the 1,320 climate disasters recorded in 2019. These promising performances, all experimental and based on observed events, are being closely scrutinised by weather agencies. Several, including Meteo-France, are developing their own AI learning models alongside traditional digital models. "This is something we have taken very seriously," Florence Rabier, Director General of the ECMWF, told AFP. Their first "learning model", made available to member states in February, is "about 1,000 times less expensive in terms of computing time than the traditional physical model", she added. While operating as a lower resolution (30 sq km) than Aurora, the ECMWF model is already operational.
The Star
22-05-2025
- Science
- The Star
Study: Microsoft AI weather forecast faster, cheaper, truer
Trained only on historical data, Aurora was able to correctly forecast all hurricanes in 2023 more accurately than operational forecasting centres, such as the US National Hurricane Center. — Reuters PARIS: Microsoft has developed an artificial intelligence (AI) model that beats current forecasting methods in tracking air quality, weather patterns, and climate-addled tropical storms, according to findings published on May 21. Dubbed Aurora, the new system – which has not been commercialised – generated 10-day weather forecasts and predicted hurricane trajectories more accurately and faster than traditional forecasting, and at lower costs, researchers reported in the journal Nature. "For the first time, an AI system can outperform all operational centres for hurricane forecasting," said senior author Paris Perdikaris, an associate professor of mechanical engineering at the University of Pennsylvania. Trained only on historical data, Aurora was able to correctly forecast all hurricanes in 2023 more accurately than operational forecasting centres, such as the US National Hurricane Center. Traditional weather predicting models are designed on first physical principles – such as conservation of mass, momentum and energy – and require massive computer power. The computational costs of Aurora were several hundred times lower, the study said. The experimental results follow on the heels of the Pangu-Weather AI model developed and unveiled by Chinese tech giant Huawei in 2023, and could herald a paradigm shift in how the world's major weather agencies forecast weather and potentially deadly extreme events exacerbated by global warming. 'Holy grail' "I believe that we're at the beginning of a transformation age in air system science," Perdikaris said in a video presentation distributed by Nature. "In the next five to 10 years the holy grail is how to build systems that can directly work with observations from remote sensing sources like satellites and weather stations to generate forecasts at high resolution anywhere we like." According to its designers, Aurora is the first AI model to consistently outperform seven forecasting centres in predicting the five-day trajectory of devastating cyclones. In its simulation, for example, Aurora correctly forecast four days in advance where and when Doksuri – the most costly typhoon ever recorded in the Pacific – would hit the Philippines. Official forecasts at the time, in 2023, had it heading north of Taiwan. Microsoft's AI model also outperformed the European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts (ECMWF) model in 92% of cases for 10-day global forecasts, on a scale of approximately 10 square kilometres (3.86 square miles). The ECMWF, which provides forecasts for 35 European countries, is considered the global benchmark for weather accuracy. In December, Google announced that its GenCast model had surpassed the European centre's accuracy in more than 97% of the 1,320 climate disasters recorded in 2019. These promising performances – all experimental and based on observed events – are being closely scrutinised by weather agencies. Several, including Meteo-France, are developing their own AI learning models alongside traditional digital models. "This is something we have taken very seriously," Florence Rabier, Director General of the ECMWF, told AFP. Their first "learning model", made available to member states in February, is "about 1,000 times less expensive in terms of computing time than the traditional physical model", she added. While operating as a lower resolution (30 sq km) than Aurora, the ECMWF model is already operational. – AFP
