(Bloomberg) -- A startup founded by a former Google executive aims to use artificial intelligence to improve weather forecasting, joining technology behemoths like Nvidia Corp. and Huawei Technologies Co. in an increasingly crowded field.
Brightband has raised a $10 million series A led by Prelude Ventures, with participation from investors including Bain & Co.’s Future Back Ventures and Slack co-founder Cal Henderson, the company said Thursday. It was launched this summer by Julian Green, who was previously at Google X, and three scientists with the aim of developing a paid product along with an open-source AI forecasting model trained on raw weather observations.
Brightband will initially focus on predicting the behavior of extreme weather, including heat waves and tropical cyclones, several days in advance of traditional forecasts, co-founder Amy McGovern, a professor of computer science and meteorology at the University of Oklahoma, said in an interview.
Within the past year, Google owner Alphabet Inc., Huawei and Nvidia have launched machine-learning models that can churn out a forecast in seconds, though some researchers have raised questions about how accurately they can perform against traditional methods under testing.
Many of these models are trained on the same underlying data from the European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts, an intergovernmental organization that keeps records going back decades but still relies on physics-based modeling to fill in holes.
By contrast, Brightband will attempt to produce medium-range forecasts, which predict the weather 10 to 14 days in advance, using only information gathered from historical weather observations — leaving out any physics-based data that’s standing in for missing or unreliable measurements.
Pulling that off will require a tremendous amount of raw, observed weather data, which Brightband plans to draw from government agencies and private satellite firms. Eventually, the startup plans to incorporate data from weather stations placed atop users’ homes and businesses.
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