Ai2 says updated climate emulator generates global 3 km data at 1/300th the cost

Ai2 introduced HiRO-ACEv2, saying the climate emulator generates global 3 km data at about 1/300th the cost of X-SHiELD, an atmospheric model that explicitly simulates storms. Its updated model produces detailed rain, wind and pressure fields, expanding beyond the earlier version's rainfall output. The system combines an AI model operating at 100 km resolution with another that converts its output into 3 km detail. With coarsened X-SHiELD inputs, Ai2 says it matches high-resolution statistics to within 3%, including events occurring once in a million data points. Models are available to download, but the system currently works only with the climate represented by its training simulation, excluding warmer future climates and historical datasets.