Huawei’s artificial intelligence-powered Pangu weather prediction system is making waves with its potential to revolutionize weather forecasting, with fast and accurate predictions. Tian Qi, the leader of Pangu’s research and development team, said it uses neural network models for weather forecasting systems and achieves higher prediction accuracy than the world’s first similar AI weather forecasting model, FourCastNet, which was released by Nvidia in 2022. The World Bank says global weather forecasting may generate economic benefits worth USD162 billion a year. Research from the China Meteorological Administration indicates that approximately 40% of China’s GDP is related to weather and climate. One example, Tian said, is wind power generation, where reducing wind speed forecast errors by half a meter per second could save the nation economic losses of CNY23.25 billion a year and reduce carbon dioxide emissions by 25 million metric tons.
“Accurate weather forecasting is of significant importance for wind power generation, precipitation forecasting, earthquake disaster reduction and guiding agricultural production,” Tian said, adding that the breakthrough can become a crucial driving force for the advancement of new quality productive forces. Tian said the numerical weather forecasting theory originated in the early 20th century. It predicts weather by solving mathematical and physical equations that describe atmospheric motion. The continuous improvement in computer processing speed in recent decades saw forecast lead times extended from one day to five to seven days, and forecast resolution decreased from several hundred kilometers to just a few kilometers. However, in recent years, the traditional forecasting method has encountered bottlenecks. According to data from the European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts, three- to seven-day forecast errors for several meteorological elements decreased by less than 5% between 2012 and 2022. Xie Lingxi, Senior Researcher in Tian’s team, said that “the traditional weather forecasting method can extend the forecast time by about one day every 10 years. The Pangu model has extended the time by 0.6 days while achieving the same level of accuracy as traditional forecasts.”
Since the completion of the Pangu model in November 2022, it has garnered widespread attention from institutions such as the European Center for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts and the China Meteorological Administration. In July, the European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts launched the Pangu weather prediction model on its website as part of its daily weather forecasting suite, providing it for free to the world, the China Daily reports.
