DestinE aims to enable more precise climate predictions and simulations by leveraging advanced AI and high-resolution data to model Earth’s systems, effectively building Europe’s digital twin.

The EU-funded initiative seeks to create an Earth digital twin with climate models that achieve much higher spatial resolution than current models.

ECMWF, in collaboration with ESA, EUMETSAT, and over 100 partners, has moved core components from prototypes to high-resolution projections and extreme-event simulations since 2022, including a Digital Twin Engine that coordinates workflows on EuroHPC supercomputers.

This effort sits within a broader push by EU-funded research to develop digital twins for global-scale environmental monitoring and forecasting.

DestinE could transform climate science by enabling more detailed and potentially faster scenario analyses for governments and organizations.

Phase 3 aims to produce AI-ready, high-quality datasets for Europe’s AI Factories, strengthening links between supercomputing, AI, and Earth-system science, and enabling new AI applications in weather and climate across Europe’s public and industrial sectors.

The enhanced models are expected to improve decision-making and policy support in climate resilience, energy planning, and environmental management.

DestinE enters its third implementation phase under a European Commission project in collaboration with ECMWF, running from mid-2026 to mid-2028, to develop a highly accurate digital twin of the Earth.

The digital twins enable exploration of past, present, and likely future climate scenarios, including tailored what-if simulations like replaying past events under a 2°C warmer world to prepare for extreme weather and risks.

Phase 3 will operate and interlink the Climate and Extremes Digital Twins with the Digital Twin Engine and advance AI to deliver an AI Earth-system model that blends physical understanding with AI for better predictions and uncertainty quantification.

Leaders emphasize DestinE’s role in consolidating digital twins and advancing AI-driven Earth-system modeling to bolster Europe’s resilience, extreme-event preparedness, and trusted environmental AI, while fostering collaboration across member states and partners.

DestinE seeks to leverage Europe’s investments in HPC and AI to complement existing services and support national meteorological and hydrological agencies and other public institutions.