Objectives of the service
The objective of this demonstration project was the analysis of satellite data to create standardized indicators of economic activity, from the study of key sectors of the economy.
This project adds to the existing product 'Global Macro Smart Data' a significant added value layer through the analysis of satellite data, allowing to provide a granular vision of the activity of each sector of the economy. This provides an excellent view of economic activity within a region or country compared to the current solution based on the analysis of multiple data sources including social networks, traffic data maritime, real-time job offer data, meteorological and oceanographic data, consumer reviews. Our goal was to strengthen existing bricks to develop new, more accurate solutions for measuring the economy based on satellite data analytics.
To obtain the best possible accuracy, QuantCube Technology also increments the information extracted from the satellite analysis by crossing it with other sources of data such as job offers, data from social networks or those of logistics flows. Then the results of the analysis are provided in real time via the platform of Economic Intelligence accessible via a license, on the SaaS model by offering QuantCube’s customers different levels of granularity ranging from sector data to macroeconomic indices.
Users and their needs
The core business of QuantCube Technology is the creation of "Smart Data" series for financial institutions. With its strong roots in quantitative economic research, QuantCube Technology understands the needs of financial institutions, therefore is able to directly address a specific economic intelligence platform to financial players.
QuanCube’s strategy is to extract synthetic indicators from massive amounts of Big Data to allow its customers to easily benefit in real time from data that would not otherwise be exploited.
Before all, it is necessary to have a deep understanding of the investment industry, artificial intelligence algorithms and different types of data to offer a competitive product that meets the expectations of our customers.
Geographically, the target market is international and consists of a variety of financial institutions such as asset managers, hedge funds, pension funds, investment banks as well as treasury department of corporates.
Service/ system concept
The overall goal of this demonstration project was to create new macroeconomic indicators, based on satellite data analytics, for financial clients wishing to establish investment strategies, or exclusively in the context of a partnership with an industrial group.
For that purpose, a global pipeline for satellite data analytics was created, from the data acquisition to the development of specific indicators.
Finally the following indicators are displayed on QuantCube’s Macroeconomic Intelligence Platform: Urban Growth, Water Stress, Pollution monitoring and Yield Prediction in order to estimate in real time the economic activity at the level of specific sectors of the economy (Real Estate, Agriculture, Manufacturing).
Space Added Value
During the kick-start project using Sentinel-2 data to create urban space series, economic applications, range from estimating economic growth city by city to measuring the extension of a city, were identified.
For this Demonstrator project the following Space assets were used:
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Sentinel-2, Sentinel-1
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Landsat-8
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Sentinel-5P
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Pleiades 1A-1B
QuantCube applied artificial intelligence and deep learning techniques to various resolutions of satellite imagery to extract different degrees of information out of them.
The goal was to strengthen existing bricks to develop new, more accurate solutions for measuring the economy based on satellite data analytics.
Finally, the addition of Earth Observation data to QuantCube’s macroeconomic solution enables to have a much higher accuracy of the models, therefore creating value for customers.
In fact, the core business of QuantCube Technology is the creation of macroeconomic indicators for financial institutions. With its strong roots in quantitative economic research, QuantCube Technology is able to directly address financial players.
QuantCube extracts synthetic indicators from massive amounts of Big Data to allow its customers to easily benefit in real time from data that would not otherwise be exploited.
It is on this expertise that QuantCube competitive advantage rests. Indeed, it is necessary to have a deep understanding of the investment business and artificial intelligence to offer a solid product that meets the expectations of the customers.
Current Status
The project has started in September 2019 and was completed in September 2021.
A CCN started and was completed in March 2023 in order to add the following additional features:
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Real Estate interface merging all developed indicators (Urban Growth, Pollution, Agriculture, etc…)
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Calculation scaling of Urban Growth index (flexibility of the platform / granularity) & integration of Sentinel-1 satellite images
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ESG Macro interface merging Environmental indexes with macroeconomic indexes
The Contract Change Notice has been requested to enhance the developed solution following pilot users and prospects feedbacks. It had a duration of 10 months during which the engineering and front-end developers developed new interface to answer client’s needs. Value proposition has been validated and market needs confirmed. The enhancements will help target a wider market and close deals with current and future prospects.
As a conclusion, this project added to the existing product 'Global Macro Smart Data' a significant added value layer through the analysis of satellite data, allowing to provide a granular vision of the activity of each sector of the economy. This provides an excellent view of economic activity within a region or country compared to the current solution based on the analysis of multiple data sources including social networks, traffic data maritime, real-time job offer data, meteorological and oceanographic data, consumer reviews.
This project goal was to strengthen existing bricks to develop new, more accurate solutions for measuring the economy based on satellite data analytics, with this Demonstrator project QuantCube met this goal.
The solution addresses different market segments: Asset Management Company and Financial institutions conducting real estate studies. QuantCube has worked very closely with Pilot Users to make sure the offer addresses well the market needs as one of QuantCube’s strengths is the ability to leverage on its network, using its connection to financial institutions to explore the market needs and therefore create a unique solution that fill the gaps in terms of data as well as technology.
Four indicators were developed in the project using different type of satellite images and a global pipeline was built from the acquisition of the images, the pre-processing and the modelling to the creation of the final macroeconomic indexes.
