In a world where ‘Data is King’, AdwäisEO, Luxembourg’s leading data and information services provider is ostensibly royalty. Currently specialising in a wide range of data services, the company is slowly making a shift towards becoming a geointelligence provider.
“Every year, the European public satellites collect three times as much data as all the data collected from the origin of time until 2014” stated Pierre de Gobert, President of AdwäisEO, if one ever needs convincing that data has become the most valuable commodity of the century..
Founded in 2015, AdwäisEO is one of Europe’s leading data and information services providers. Its services, provided to space agencies, companies, public institutions, and research centres, include data collection, database management, data archival, storage and distribution.
More specifically, the company handles georeferenced data gathered by satellites which includes optical, infrared and radar measurements.
After spending its first years mostly storing immense amounts of data – they have an archive of 40 petabytes of data –, AdwäisEO is currently trying to make the shift from data supplier to information supplier.
Indeed, satellite data represent raw information, that needs to be processed in order to become valuable. AdwäisEO want to start turning collected data into actionable and valued information for decision-makers, thereby shifting its activities to the geointelligence domain.
“Every year, the European public satellites collect three times as much data as all the data collected from the origin of time until 2014.”
Pierre de Gobert
A Unique Programme
As the prime contractor of the Luxembourg Space Agency for the LSA Data Center (the SENTINEL Collaborative Ground Segment of Luxembourg), AdwäisEO is part of a programme that is “unique in Europe and the world.”
The LSA Data Center is Luxembourg’s entry point to worldwide data products by the Sentinel 1 and 2 Satellite Missions. The two missions are the product of the European Union’s Earth Observation Programme called COPERNICUS, coordinated, and managed by the European Commission in partnership with the European Space Agency.
It is unique because it is the only data repository in the world where both Sentinel 1 and 2 data are immediately available without any spatial (full planet coverage) or temporal limitation. Given the size of Luxembourg and AdwäisEO this is a massive achievement which is “comparable in scale and in terms of data storage and distribution to US bodies,” says Pierre de Gobert.
Security First
With Luxembourg working hard on growing the digital economy, data service providers such as AdwäisEO are not only becoming increasingly important but also more exposed to outside attacks.
While some data centres lack adequate protection and backups, AdwäisEO not only implements cutting-edge security solutions but also uses the exceptional facilities of Luxembourg with its network of TIER IV data centres, which, in the words of its founder, make them “as safe and secure as banks in Switzerland.”
Working in a sector which is crucial to the Digital Agenda of the European Union, AdwäisEO is keeping a close eye on the developments across the Atlantic where more and more data service providers are offering hybrid cloud infrastructures. This development has prompted AdwäisEO to offer specific cloud storage which will keep them safely ahead of their European competition.
Active for barely 5 years, AdwäisEO has already established itself as an important player in the European geodata sector. It will be exciting to see what role they will play in the geointelligence industry of tomorrow.
This article was first published in the Silicon Luxembourg magazine. Read the full digital version of the magazine on our website, here. You can also choose to receive a hard copy at the office or at home. Subscribe now.
