The GenAI4Earth project officially launched its activities during its three-day Kick-off Meeting, held from 21 to 23 September 2026 at the Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Científicas in Santander, Spain.
Funded by the European Union under Horizon Europe, GenAI4Earth brings together 17 partners from 9 European countries aiming to advance the use of frugal and trustworthy Artificial Intelligence in Earth System Science (ESS).The project is co-piloted by the Data Terra and NFDI4Earth research infrastructures.
Advancing trustworthy AI for Earth System Science
GenAI4Earth will go beyond the state of the art by designing, deploying, and operating trustworthy, reusable AI services within the EOSC ecosystem, advancing discovery on Earth-Climate-Environment-Life interactions in co-design with user communities and research infrastructures at national and European levels. Aligned with Apply AI and GenAI initiatives, the project builds on FAIR data, models, and workflows, integrating them into EOSC (AI4EOSC initiative, EOSC Node Data Terra) to foster standards, best practices, and confidence in AI-enabled data spaces and foundation models.
The project will implement AI tools to improve the FAIRness, machine-actionability, AI-readiness and provenance of Earth System Science data and services. It will also demonstrate pilots in urban resilience, agro-environmental monitoring and seismology.
A common vision established during the Kick-off Meeting
The Kick-off Meeting brought partners together to establish a common vision and coordinate the first stages of the project. Over three days, participants discussed the technical roadmap, project governance, strategic alignment, ethics, communication and exploitation, as well as the development of AI-ready data spaces and tailored Foundation Models for Earth System Science.
The meeting provided an opportunity to explore synergies with European initiatives and infrastructures, including AI4EOSC, NFDI4Earth, EOSC-ARENA, and FLUID-AI4EOSC.
The GenAI4Earth consortium
GenAI4Earth brings together expertise from research organisations, universities and SMEs across Europe.
Project partners
- Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique / Data Terra, France
- Université de Strasbourg, France
- Institut National de Recherche pour l’Agriculture, l’Alimentation et l’Environnement, France
- Institut National de Recherche en Informatique et Automatique (INRIA), France
- Neovia Innovation, France
- Helmholtz-Zentrum für Geoforschung (GFZ), Germany
- Helmholtz-Zentrum für Umweltforschung (UFZ), Germany
- Karlsruher Institut für Technologie (KIT), Germany
- Technische Universität München (TUM), Germany
- Agencia Estatal Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Científicas (CSIC), Spain
- Ethniko Kai Kapodistriako Panepistimio Athinon (UOA), Greece
- Instytut Chemii Bioorganicznej Polskiej Akademii Nauk (PSNC), Poland
- Development Seed (DevSeed), Portugal
- Ustav Informatiky Slovenskej Akademie Vied (II-SAS), Slovakia;
- MetaPlanet, France
- The University of Edinburgh (UEDIN), United Kingdom
- Wageningen University (WU), Netherlands.
Grant Agreement No. 101293266
Website: genai4earth.earth-data.eu
LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/showcase/gen-ai-4-earth/
Contact at SCC: Dr. Valentin Kozlov