ICHEC Uses AI to Aid Disaster Recovery

ICHEC, the national high-performance computing authority of Ireland, recently participated in the xView2 disaster recovery challenge run by the US Defense Innovation Unit and other Humanitarian Assistance and Disaster Recovery (HADR) organisations. Models developed during the challenge including those developed at ICHEC are currently being tested by agencies responding to the ongoing bushfires in Australia. XView2 Challenge is based on using high resolution imagery to see the details of specific damage conditions in overhead imagery of a disaster area. The challenge involved building AI models to locate and classify the severity of damage to buildings using pairs of pre and post disaster satellite images. Models like these allow those responding to disasters to rapidly assess the damage left in their wake, enabling more effective response efforts and potentially saving lives.