Deep-time Digital Earth Research Centre of Excellence (Suzhou)

Deep-time Digital Earth (DDE) is a geological sciences program dedicated to “lift” centuries-old data held by museums, research institutes, and individual scientists “from page to cyberspace.” In December 2018, DDE as an International Big Science program was recognized by the International Union of Geological Sciences (IUGS), one of the world’s largest scientific unions. DDE aims to enable and enhance data-driven discovery in the geosciences and create linked, interoperable big-data hubs that integrate unpublished data with existing databases in the public domain.

DDE will provide new opportunities and directions for the development of Earth Sciences. The program was formally initiated at an event in early 2019 in Beijing, China. DDE is going to invest in science infrastructures based on emerging technologies, including artificial intelligence, to serve geoscientists all around the world. The core purpose of these infrastructures will be to construct a machine-readable geoscience knowledge hierarchy for compiling and standardizing geological data of varying quality and complexity. DDE Research Centers of Excellence (DDE RCEs) will constitute a network bringing together top scientists and creating new knowledge via a range of research activities focused on data-driven discoveries. A number of DDE RCEs will be established in different parts of the world to support and implement the DDE program. The RCE (Suzhou) in China is the first to be established under the DDE program. Read More.