CloudFerro S.A., a Polish provider of cloud services and the largest company in the Polish space sector, has been approved by the European Commission as one of 19 entities in Europe to receive public aid for innovations in spatial data processing. A support of 22 million EUR will be allocated to the GATEWAY project, which aims at implementing cloud and edge processing services. The solution will enable scientific centres and commercial entities to utilise satellite data from Earth observation, enriched with aerial data, and process it sustainably through the use of data centres powered by green energy.
Over 4500 artificial satellites orbiting the Earth provide users with vast amounts of data every day, driving innovation in various industrial and scientific branches. It is estimated that more than 40% of European industry is supported by data from Earth observation programs, and the benefits could become more apparent by combining them with other spatial data, such as from aerial observation or drones. To connect these resources, large data repositories and their processing capabilities in cloud technologies are indispensable.
“The GATEWAY project will enable entities operating in various sectors of the economy to widely use information from the combination of satellite, aerial, in-situ, and computer simulation data, which will be extraordinarily valuable for scientific research, R&D, and commercialisation in the IT sector, environmental analysis, and local and regional management,” says Stanisław Krzyżanowski, who is implementing the project in CloudFerro.
The company’s proposition also involves the use of an innovative, distributed approach to operations and the delivery of cloud services. The decentralization of data centres will increase the speed of operations using a larger number of access points for computations. This solution will allow for advanced technological research leading to the development and launch of next-generation cloud services – reliable, secure, and crucially, environmentally clean.
Thanks to edge computing (in distributed centres located in various places in Poland and Europe), it will be possible to analyse data at a location powered by green energy, thereby reducing the carbon footprint in the spirit of so-called “carbon-aware computing”, which involves creating software and computer technologies in an environmentally-friendly manner that does not harm the planet.
The total value of the 3-year project will be 28 million euro. GATEWAY is implemented independently by CloudFerro, under the European mechanism called IPCEI-CIS, which supports research and development projects, including new generation cloud infrastructure and services.
