These new indicators include:

1. The urban growth index – measuring development in cities and urban areas over time;
2. The NO2 pollution index – tracking human activity by comparing average nitrogen dioxide produced across different regions;
3. The water stress index – monitoring water surface fluctuations to pinpoint the likely occurrence of drought and water shortages; and
4. The agricultural index – observing agricultural land usage to help predict changes in agricultural yields.

Harnessing artificial intelligence (AI) and big data techniques to process the extensive datasets, these indicators meet financial institutions’ demand for insights into how economies are evolving in terms of urban growth, agricultural yields, pollution, and water supply. The information can be delivered in granular detail – both at regional and country level.

In the long-term, the indicators have the potential to provide insight into measuring environmental sustainability.

Thanh-Long Huynh, CEO of QuantCube, said that over the last two years the company has been working closely with the ESA on a demonstration project, applying AI and deep learning techniques to their earth observation data to create the new set of indicators. “Combining the satellite data from ESA with additional QuantCube data sources¬ allows us to provide a new set of indicators for measuring economic changes in granular detail across key sectors of the economy,” he explained.

ESA’s applications engineer, Volker Schumacher, added: “We’re very happy that QuantCube is now launching these four new Global Satellite indicators to market and that financial institutions and other organisations will be able to benefit from this new real-time economic intelligence.”

The new set of QuantCube Global Satellite indicators are now incorporated into QuantCube’s Macroeconomic Intelligence Platform, which also provides real-time indicators for inflation, tourism, global trade, and key macro-economic variables.