News & events

Descartes Labs and Planetek Italia have announced a partnership to transform big data from space into actionable knowledge for global users. The agreement brings together Descartes Labs’ machine learning algorithms and computer vision tools with Planetek’s monitoring services based on the Rheticus^® cloud platform.

Under the agreement, Descartes Labs and Planetek Italia will develop new remote sensing applications in areas such as precision farming and sustainable development. This partnership follows the paradigm shift of Earth observation services, moving from a project-based model to an information-as-a-service model.

Thanks to the automatic analysis of satellite big data in the cloud, the creation of analytics with a spatial dimension becomes dynamic. This is possible by combining the capabilities of Descartes Labs’ artificial intelligence, machine learning, and cloud computing, with Planetek Italia’s more than twenty years of experience and activity in the design and development of Earth observation services related to Copernicus, the European Union flagship program for Space.

“I have no doubt that our partnership with Descartes Labs will boost the value of our Rheticus^® platform tremendously. Thanks to this partnership, our customers will benefit from the improvement in our geoanalytics production, offering superior value to our customers worldwide,” said Planetek Italia Chief Executive Officer, Giovanni Sylos Labini. “This agreement also gives us the ability to follow the path toward an information-as-a-service model, drown by Europe with the Copernicus Data and Information Access Services (DIAS). The European Space Agency has been far-sighted in favoring the meeting between European companies and companies like Descartes Labs at the last Future EO conference in May 2017.”

“We are very pleased to partner with Planetek, a company that is aligned with our business and acts as a compliment to the work we’re doing in geospatial science,” said Co-Founder and Chief Executive Officer of Descartes Labs, Mark Johnson. “Planetek’s team is using Copernicus and ESA’s state-of-the art imagery to raise the standard in mapping, change detection, and applications of remote sensing to agriculture. Our goal is that by working together, we can more quickly and accurately diagnose some of the world’s most plaguing forecasting problems.”

Companies’ assets and agreement highlights

Descartes Labs has created a cloud-based supercomputing platform for the application of machine intelligence to massive data sets. Capitalizing on the confluence of advances in AI and high-performance cloud computing — along with the rapid increase of sensors capturing information all over the globe — Descartes Labs has created an enterprise data refinery. Today, Descartes Labs uses satellite imagery to model complex systems on the planet, like forestry and agriculture. The company processes data flows from all the major satellite constellations at scale to provide instant access to analysis-ready images of the entire world in a massive, searchable, on-demand interface.

Planetek has created Rheticus^®, an automatic cloud-based geo-information service platform, designed to provide fresh and accurate data and information on our changing world. Rheticus^® provides timely information that fits the needs of a growing number of business applications. The information is provided as a service and includes maps, reports and geospatial indexes, designed to monitor several phenomena: territorial changes, urban dynamics and land use changes, ground displacements (landslide and subsidence), infrastructure stability, new infrastructure and construction areas, wildfire burned areas or coastal seawater quality.

Thanks to this agreement, Planetek Italia will expand the range of monitoring services and geoanalytics provided by Rheticus^® on the web on a global scale through an international network of Rheticus^® partners. Descartes Labs will find potential new applications and research areas, positioning both partners to fully unlock the value of big satellite data from Space and create significant new value for customers.