China has made a significant breakthrough in lunar science with the development of the world’s first professional, multimodal large language model (LLM) specifically designed for lunar data. This innovative tool, unveiled at the China International Big Data Industry Expo, is a collaboration between the Chinese Academy of Sciences’ Institute of Geochemistry and the Alibaba Cloud Intelligence Group.
The LLM is a key component of a comprehensive “digital moon” platform that houses the most extensive collection of lunar exploration data. Essentially, it acts as the “smart brain” for this virtual lunar environment. By analyzing and identifying lunar craters based on their size, depth, and shape, the LLM provides scientists with invaluable insights into the moon’s geological evolution.
Given the sheer number of lunar craters—over 1 million with a diameter exceeding 1 kilometer—manual identification would be a daunting and impractical task. The LLM offers a much more efficient solution. Researchers simply need to input an image of a crater, and the LLM can accurately determine its characteristics with a success rate of over 80%.
