Tg Mondo Hi-Tech, edition of 14 June 2024

There is talk of the 'digital twin' of the earth, INGV in space consortium, data centers and AI

EU LAUNCHES ‘DESTINE’, SUPERCOMPUTER NETWORK FOR CLIMATE

The European Commission has activated the Destination Earth system or DestinE, a Commission flagship initiative to develop a highly accurate ‘digital twin’ of the Earth by 2030. The European high-performance computers EuroHPC (pronounced: iuroeicpisì), including the Lumi supercomputer in Kajaani, Finland, are tasked with simulating the effects of climate change and extreme weather events. Thanks to this initiative, Europe will be better prepared to respond to serious natural disasters – increasingly frequent due to the ongoing climate emergency – and evaluate their potential socio-economic and political impacts. DestinE is using unprecedented modeling capabilities thanks to EuroHPC computers and artificial intelligence.

INGV IN CONSORZIO SPACE IT UP FOR SPATIAL EXCELLENCE

The National Institute of Geophysics and Volcanology-Ingv is an active part of the newly formed Space It Up company. The consortium’s project aims for a sustainable future to be achieved with cutting-edge space technologies capable of monitoring climate change and predicting extreme weather events. Another objective is to guarantee humanity’s long-term permanence in space, towards a vision of a ‘multiplanetary’ society. Finally, Space It Up wants to strengthen space as an ecosystem in Italy, covering the entire value chain of space research and development, through close collaboration between universities, research bodies and industries. The innovative project received funding of 80 million euros from the Italian Space Agency-Asi and the Ministry of University and Research, thanks to the coordination of the Polytechnic of Turin. The consortium includes a vast network of partners, including 13 universities, 10 public and private research centers and 10 leading companies in the space sector. The INGV Earth Space Observations Center will be the focal point for the coordination of the institute’s initiatives within the consortium.

DATA CENTER BETWEEN POWER AND SUSTAINABILITY IN THE ERA OF AI ‘ AI

The commitment to the decarbonisation of data centers is no longer a niche choice. An astonishing 90% of CEOs recognize the crucial role of sustainability in the success of their company. However, data centers, in their current form, are among the most energy-intensive entities globally. Research from 451 Research reveals that in 2019, data centers accounted for more than 6% of total energy consumption in the United States. Furthermore, projections for Europe indicate that by 2025 data center energy consumption will increase by more than 21% compared to 2018 levels. The challenge, then, is to replace aging and inefficient servers so that organizations can migrate daily workflows towards a more powerful and efficient infrastructure. This would not only reduce energy needs, but would free up precious resources for new innovations.

NEW MEMBERS EU INTERNET FORUM AGAINST HARMFUL CONTENT

The EU Internet Forum met to welcome new members: Amazon, Sound Cloud, Mistral AI, DailyMotion and the Institute for Strategic Dialogue (a civil society organisation) joined They add to 17 other technology companies that are already part of the Forum, together with Member States, EU institutions and agencies, the Global Internet Forum for Counter-Terrorism and the United Nations Counter-Terrorism Centre. All members will play an active role in fighting harmful and illegal content online. Throughout its mandate, the Commission has worked to ensure a safer Internet and has adopted several initiatives in this area, including the Terrorist Content Regulation, involving X and Meta in particular for content monitoring from the outset.