Google’s “Virtual Satellite” is Here: New AI Model AlphaEarth Foundations Maps the Planet with Unprecedented Detail

Google announced AlphaEarth Foundations, an AI “virtual satellite” that fuses optical, radar, and climate-simulation data into compact embedded summaries over 10×10 m grids to enable fast, scalable monitoring of environmental change. The model supports tasks like crop health mapping, deforestation analysis, and coastal erosion risk prediction, with its Satellite Embedding dataset now available on Google Earth Engine. Early access has involved 50+ institutions, and future plans include finer resolution, more data types, and closer-to-real-time integration to advance global environmental monitoring.