Every day at Geo Week News, we publish the most important press releases from the industry to keep those within the industry up-to-date with all of the news they need to know. Of course, we know it can be difficult to keep up with everything coming in, so we’re going to look back at the week that was in the news every Friday to recap the biggest happenings of the last five days. Today, we have news about an Earth Observation leader’s foray into large language models, multiple stories from Hexagon, new partnerships, and more.
Planet Labs Partners with Anthropic
Artificial intelligence has long been a crucial tool for the geospatial industry, and that usage has only increased in recent years. However, most of that is probably better qualified as computer vision or machine learning, and largely doesn’t fit into the large-language model bucket that is driving most of the mainstream attention around AI. That doesn’t mean there is no LLM usage in the industry, though, and as time goes on we’re likely to see more harnessing of this specific technology to streamline workflows in the sector.
This week, we saw a big step in that direction with one of the biggest companies in the Earth observation space partnering with one of the leaders in the crowded LLM sector. Specifically, Planet Labs announced a partnership with Anthropic that will the latter’s Claude with the daily scans from Planet’s array of Earth observation satellites. This will certainly be a partnership to watch, as we are talking about a massive dataset that has the potential to provide even more value than it already is, and it will be interesting to see how an LLM handles data of this complexity and size.
It will also be interesting to see whether or not this is the only partnership of this kind Planet makes. As Aravind Ravichandran pointed out on LinkedIn, Google is a shareholder in Planet and have their own LLM with Gemini. He also notes that for an EO company, one would think they’d want as many LLMs as possible to utilize their data. There’s certainly going to be more to come in this realm – both with Planet and other EO leaders – but this will be a fascinating partnership to watch for an idea of how the future of geospatial and LLMs could intersect.
Two Announcements from Hexagon
Hexagon made two big announcements this week, one announcing a new collaboration and the other shaking up the structure of the company. First up, we have an announced enhancement to their “sensor fusion technology for superior positioning,” combining their SPAN GNSS+IMU solution by adding in ground-penetrating radar (GPR) sensors from GPR, Inc. into the solution from NovAtel, part of Hexagon. This is the result of an MOU signed by the two companies, and they say their aim is to “deliver customers a robust positioning solution, ensuring consistent, centimetre-level accuracy even in GPS-denied or environmentally challenging conditions in autonomy, mining and other mission-critical applications.”
The company also announced preparation for spinning off their Asset Lifecycle Intelligence division, something that was originally announced in October of last year. They are currently referring to the spun-off company as “NewCo,” which they expect to be listed on a U.S. securities exchange. Ola Rollén, Chairman of the Board for Hexagon, said they believe a spin-off “allows each company to capitalise on their competitive advantages, execute on their increasingly distinct strategies, and leverage their greater agility to accelerate growth and benefit from clear structural tailwinds.” It’s expected that the spin-off will also include the remainder of Hexagon’s Safety, Infrastructure & Geospatial division.
Other News
Heading back to the partnerships realm, this week Trimble announced a collaboration with STMicroelectronics to deliver positioning solutions for automotive and IoT solutions. As a result of the collaboration, Trimble ProPoint Go will be paired with STMicroelectronics’ Teseo VI GNSS Chipsets.
In the work of location data, Precisely announced the launch of their new Data Link partner program, which they say will streamline the integration of their data portfolio with data from other providers. Inaugural partners include GeoX Analytics, Overture Maps Foundation, and Regrid.
Sticking with new products, Graphisoft announced the launch of Archicad Studio. The new subscription plan is tailored to solo practitioners working independently or with local teams.
Over in the U.K., the Association for Geographic Information (AGI) announced their 2025 Awards for Excellence. Nominations for the awards are now open, and winners will be announced at GEO Business 2025, being held later this year.
- Finally, Esri has published a new book for the GIS community. This one, entitled Getting to Know Mobile GIS, is focused on the growing mobile GIS market.
