Asia Pacific countries are gripping geospatial information, digital solutions and artificial intelligence to improve their retort to the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic and to help meet the bearable Development Goals, according to a fresh report, “Data is now a strategic asset,” Tiziana Bonapace, director of the ICT and disaster risk reduction division of UN Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific (UNESCAP) “With more use, more value is added.” The report, which is paramount in a series of UNESCAP publications to evaluate progress towards applying the Asia Pacific Plan of Action on Space Applications for Sustainable Development (2018–2030), peaks a number of initiatives throughout the region. Thailand, for example, used space applications to monitor the native COVID-19 situation and envision the influence of development policies. The Geo-Informatics and Space Technology Development Agency scrutinized reduced night-light images to monitor the impact of lockdown measures. Satellite data is also used to monitor nitrogen dioxide emissions and instigated that since the beginning of the year, most provinces in Thailand had fewer activities that caused emissions. All this data was integrated into a newly created dashboard that allows policymakers and others to monitor the pandemic, medical capacity, supplies, consumer goods and preventive and precautionary measures. “Data is now a strategic asset” Tiziana Bonapace, UN Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific (UNESCAP) Last March, the Philippines’ Department of Science and Technology – Philippine Council for Industry, Energy and Emerging Technology Research and Development (DOST-PCIEERD) besought proposals for projects that use geo-spatial information in response to COVID-19. Now that the world is on the verge of vaccine availability, the need for artificial intelligence geospatial information persists as countries plan for a shift towards a “new normal,” Enrico Paringit, executive director of DOST-PCIEERD said.