Peking University Launches "Planetary Health Digital Compass" Using AI to Map 48,000 Dynamic Variables

On November 10, the "Beijing Forum 2025: Human Health and Digital Civilization Forum" hosted the China launch of the "Planetary Health Axis System" (PHAS) at Peking University.

At the event, Liu Guoen, Dean of the Institute for Global Health and Development at Peking University, stated that PHAS employs a unique design and groundbreaking innovation, leveraging AI to integrate all available data. This enables mutual training for higher usability, modeling and identifying complex interactions among planetary elements while incorporating expert insights as calibration references. The result is an intelligent system capable of modeling and dynamically monitoring global planetary health.

In framework design, PHAS establishes a comprehensive roadmap for planetary health modeling, featuring four core modules: 1. A planetary health economics module based on long-term stochastic control. 2. A data integration module utilizing cyclic training. 3. A dynamic relational network module applying graph-based deep learning. 4. An expert feedback training module incorporating human-in-the-loop mechanisms.

Research indicates PHAS can replicate known scientific knowledge and uncover previously undescribed causal pathways. Notably, it identifies longer, more complex "bidirectional heterogeneous" relationships. Unlike traditional tools limited to prioritizing factors, PHAS provides governance-oriented resource allocation guidance. For example, analysis shows that reducing fossil fuel use by 20% slows—but does not reverse—global planetary health decline. However, increasing global innovation investment by over 20% could restore planetary health to pre-2000 levels.

Developed collaboratively by Peking University’s Institute for Global Health and Development and dozens of leading global research institutions, PHAS integrates over 48,000 key variables across human health, species health, environmental health, and societal health. It dynamically tracks and evaluates humanity’s developmental footprint, species evolution, environmental changes, and their relationship to planetary boundaries.