NASA is using Intel’s deep learning to build better moon maps

NASA’s Frontier Development Lab collects a lot of data. It’s one of the main things it does when it’s not landing things on other things. But actually deriving useful information from all the data it collects is another issue entirely, so it has begun enlisting some big tech names like Intel to crunch some of those numbers. That partnership includes Nervana, the deep learning startup the chip maker acquired back in 2016, which it’s leveraging to translate those numbers into useful information.

With the AI system, researchers were able to crunch around 200TB of data, drawing from 3D imagery of the moon gathered by an army of survey satellites. From there, researchers generated maps of the moon’s poles, overcoming the difficulty of detailing craters located in the shadowy surface regions.