BioDT project accepted: Digital twin for advanced simulation, modelling and prediction capabilities

HORIZON-INFRA-2021-TECH-01-01
Lead by: Dr Damien Lecarpentier, CSC Finland
Budget: ~€12M
Lifespan: June 2022 – May 2025

The goal of BioDT is to push the current boundaries of predictive understanding of biodiversity dynamics by developing a Biodiversity Digital Twin (BioDT) providing advanced modelling, simulation and prediction capabilities. By using already existing technologies and data from relevant research infrastructures in new ways, the BioDT will be able to accurately and quantitatively model interactions between species and their environment.

Scientists will be able to use the BioDT to 1) better observe changes in biodiversity, 2) relate these changes to possible causes, and 3) better predict effects of changes in biodiversity and their related causes.

The BioDT consortium brings together experts in biodiversity, high performance computing, artificial intelligence, digital twinning and FAIR data to develop the first BioDT prototype. It combines the unique potential of the flagship EuroHPC LUMI computing infrastructure with the scientific expertise and existing biodiversity data from four major research
infrastructures: GBIF, eLTER, DiSSCo, and LifeWatch ERIC.

This allows us to cover several application domains such as environmental and earth science, climate science, ecology, marine biology, genomics, natural history, biodiversity informatics, computer sciences, and mathematics / statistics. BioDT and its infrastructure are envisioned to be an integral component of the Destination Earth initiative and its ambition to realise a full Digital Twin of the Earth.

The long-term objectives of BioDT are also tightlyinterconnected with the EC vision for a robust, federated European computing and data infrastructure and initiatives such as the European Open Science Cloud (EOSC) and EuroHPC.