What is Qanto?
A three-layer weather intelligence platform that turns the world's weather data into actionable intelligence and financial protection — accessible to anyone, human or machine.
Weather data today is fragmented across dozens of sources, locked behind enterprise sales teams, and delivered in formats that machines can't easily consume. The intelligence layer — turning “wind will be 12 m/s” into “your wind farm output will drop 30%, hedge your contracts” — costs $50K–$500K/year and requires talking to a salesperson.
Qanto solves this with three layers:
Layer 1: Data
40+ weather sources unified into one pay-per-call API
Layer 2: Intelligence
AI-powered analysis, impact scoring, and natural language insights
Layer 3: Finance
Democratized parametric insurance and proactive weather hedging
The Jensen Huang Playbook
AI weather foundation models (NVIDIA Earth-2, GenCast, NeuralGCM) are the “GPU” — they exist and are increasingly open. Jensen didn't invent machine learning — he built the chips that made it practical. We don't build weather models. We build the intelligence and application layer that makes them useful.
Layer 1: Weather Data API
Every major free weather data source, unified into clean JSON, accessible via a single API key. Pay per call. No salesperson.
Today, a developer who needs comprehensive weather data must register for 5–10 different APIs, learn different authentication schemes, parse GRIB2/NetCDF/GeoJSON/CSV, handle different rate limits, and write their own normalization logic. We do all of that once. You make one API call.
The Flagship Endpoint
GET /v1/weather/{location}
Parameters:
location string required Lat,lon / city / ZIP / airport code
hours int 48 Hours of hourly forecast (max 384)
days int 7 Days of daily forecast (max 16)
models string "best" "best", "gfs", "ecmwf", "hrrr", "all"
units string "metric" "metric", "imperial", "si"
fields string "standard" "standard", "all", or comma-separatedExample Response
{
"location": {
"lat": 40.7128, "lon": -74.006,
"name": "New York, NY",
"elevation_m": 10,
"timezone": "America/New_York"
},
"current": {
"time": "2026-03-14T15:00:00Z",
"temperature_c": 12.3,
"feels_like_c": 10.1,
"humidity_pct": 65,
"wind_speed_ms": 4.2,
"wind_direction_deg": 270,
"cloud_cover_pct": 40,
"solar_irradiance_wm2": 310,
"uv_index": 4,
"weather_description": "Partly cloudy",
"source": "nws_observation"
},
"hourly": [
{
"time": "2026-03-14T16:00:00Z",
"temperature_c": 12.1,
"wind_speed_ms": 4.5,
"precipitation_probability_pct": 10,
"solar_irradiance_wm2": 280,
"source": "model_blend_gfs_ecmwf"
}
],
"daily": [
{
"date": "2026-03-15",
"temperature_max_c": 14.2,
"temperature_min_c": 5.8,
"precipitation_sum_mm": 2.1,
"heating_degree_days": 12.1,
"cooling_degree_days": 0,
"source": "model_blend_gfs_ecmwf"
}
],
"meta": {
"credits_used": 1,
"models_used": ["gfs", "ecmwf_ifs"],
"generated_at": "2026-03-14T15:02:00Z"
}
}All Endpoints
/v1/weather/{location}Current + forecast + daily. The flagship.
/v1/weather/{location}/historyHistorical weather data (ERA5 reanalysis, 1940–present).
/v1/alertsActive weather alerts for monitored locations.
/v1/alerts/rulesCreate custom alert rules with webhook/Slack/email delivery.
/v1/solar/{location}Solar irradiance (GHI, DNI, DHI) + PV generation estimates.
/v1/marine/{location}Ocean conditions — wave height, swell, SST, currents.
/v1/air-quality/{location}AQ index, PM2.5, PM10, O3, NO2, SO2, CO.
/v1/modelsList available models, their status, accuracy, and coverage.
Design Principles
- One call, all data — inspired by OpenWeatherMap's One Call and Visual Crossing's Timeline
- JSON only — no GRIB, no NetCDF, no XML
- Transparent sourcing — every data point includes its source
- 5-minute onboarding — signup to first successful call in under 5 minutes
Data Sources
Every major free weather data source — government, satellite, radar, marine, air quality, and solar — aggregated and normalized.
All source data is free or open-licensed. NOAA data is US public domain. ECMWF went fully open (CC-BY-4.0) in October 2025. NVIDIA Earth-2 models are Apache 2.0. The moat is the intelligence layer, not the data.
Tier 1: Always On
| Source | Data Type | Resolution | Update | License |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| NOAA GFS | Global forecast | 28 km | 6h | Public domain |
| ECMWF IFS | Global forecast | 28 km | 6h | CC-BY-4.0 |
| ECMWF AIFS | AI global forecast | 28 km | 6h | CC-BY-4.0 |
| NOAA HRRR | US high-res forecast | 3 km | 1h | Public domain |
| NWS API | US forecasts + alerts | 2.5 km | 1–2h | Public domain |
| Open-Meteo | Multi-model aggregation | 1–11 km | Varies | CC-BY-4.0 |
| ERA5 | Historical reanalysis (1940–present) | 31 km | 5-day lag | Copernicus |
Tier 2: Specialized
| Source | Data Type | Resolution | Update | License |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| NOAA AIGFS | AI forecast (GraphCast-based) | 28 km | 12h | Public domain |
| GOES Satellite | Imagery, cloud, lightning | 0.5–2 km | 5–10 min | Public domain |
| NEXRAD Radar | Reflectivity, velocity | 250 m | 5 min | Public domain |
| NDBC Buoys | Marine observations | Point | Hourly | Public domain |
| OpenAQ | Air quality | Station | Varies | Open |
| NREL NSRDB | Solar irradiance | 4 km | 30 min | Public domain |
AI Weather Models
Qanto uses commercially-licensed AI models that outperform traditional physics-based forecasting while using 99.7% less compute.
Commercially Usable
| Model | License | Resolution | Horizon | Cost/Run | Key Strength |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| NVIDIA Atlas (Earth-2) | Apache 2.0 | 0.25° | 15 days | ~$0.05–0.30 | Best commercially usable AI model |
| NVIDIA FourCastNet3 | Apache 2.0 | 0.25° | 90 days | ~$0.04 | 90-day forecast in 20 seconds on H100 |
| NVIDIA StormScope | Apache 2.0 | km-scale | 0–6 hours | GPU-seconds | Nowcasting, outperforms physics models |
| NeuralGCM | Apache 2.0 | ~1.4° | 2–15 days | Runs on laptop | Hybrid physics+ML, also does climate |
| ECMWF AIFS output | CC-BY-4.0 | 0.25° | 15 days | Free (output) | First operational AI weather model |
| NOAA AIGFS output | Public domain | 0.25° | 16 days | Free (output) | Based on GraphCast |
Non-Commercial (Cannot Use in Product)
Beats ECMWF on 97.2% of targets. Non-commercial.
Published in Science. Non-commercial.
Published in Nature. Non-commercial.
Best at >6 day forecasts. Non-commercial.
Why NVIDIA Earth-2 is the foundation
NVIDIA's Earth-2 family (Atlas, FourCastNet3, StormScope, CorrDiff) is the only commercially-usable AI weather model suite. Apache 2.0 license — no restrictions. Earth2Studio provides a unified inference pipeline. Inference costs $0.04–0.30 per forecast, making pay-per-call pricing viable.
Layer 2: Intelligence API
The data API returns "wind will be 12 m/s." The intelligence API returns "your wind farm output will drop 30% — hedge your forward contracts."
The industry explicitly distinguishes weather data (raw measurements) from weather intelligence (contextualized, actionable insight). Per Baron Weather: “A 40 mph wind forecast is just data until contextualized. Intelligence emerges when the data connects to specific operational consequences.”
Intelligence Endpoints
Natural Language Summarization
GET /v1/intelligence/summarizeRaw weather data in, plain English analysis out — tailored to your vertical (energy trader, farmer, logistics manager).
How: LLM (Claude API) + weather data via tool use. Domain-specific prompts per audience.
Impact Scoring
GET /v1/intelligence/impact0–10 severity score for a specific operation at a location. Wind farm, construction site, outdoor event, shipping route.
How: Rules engine + ML model trained per vertical.
Energy Demand Prediction
GET /v1/intelligence/demandPredicted electricity demand change driven by weather for a given grid region.
How: LSTM/GRU models trained on historical weather + load data. Research shows 25% improvement over baselines.
Anomaly Detection
GET /v1/intelligence/anomaliesFlags unusual weather patterns — temperature 8°C above 30-year average, unprecedented wind patterns, etc.
How: Statistical methods (z-scores vs ERA5 climatology) + ML (Isolation Forest, autoencoders).
Crop Yield Impact
GET /v1/intelligence/crop-impactPredicted yield impact from weather for a specific crop at a specific location.
How: AI models achieve 85–95% accuracy vs 60–70% traditional. Key factors: rainfall and temperature.
Historical Pattern Matching
GET /v1/intelligence/similar-periods"Current conditions match March 2018. In that period, UK power prices rose 12%."
How: TS-RAG — retrieves similar historical patterns from 80+ years of ERA5 data.
Natural Language Q&A
Via MCP ServerAsk questions about weather in plain English. "Should I reschedule my outdoor event Saturday?"
How: MCP tool calling: fetch weather → fetch impact → LLM synthesizes response.
Layer 3: Weather Finance
The farmer doesn't buy insurance. The platform detects risk, analyzes impact, and hedges automatically.
To buy weather insurance today, you need a big insurance provider (Allianz, Swiss Re, Munich Re). Enterprise sales cycle. Minimum premiums in the thousands. A small farmer in California, a wedding planner in Florida, a food truck owner in Texas — they can't access parametric weather protection.
How It Works
Connect
Farmer connects their land (GPS coordinates + crop type)
Monitor
Platform monitors weather forecasts 24/7 using Layer 1 (data) + Layer 2 (intelligence)
Detect
"Frost risk in 5 days. 80% probability. Your almond crop is vulnerable. Estimated loss: $50,000."
Hedge
Platform automatically purchases parametric cover — via smart contracts, licensed insurers (Arbol, Descartes), or prediction markets (Kalshi)
Notify
"We've hedged your frost risk. Cost: $500. If frost hits, you receive $50,000 automatically."
Settle
If frost hits → automatic payout via smart contract or parametric trigger. No claims adjuster.
Market Context
Parametric Insurance Market
$21–24B (2025–2026), growing 12–13% annually. Weather-based insurance is the fastest-growing segment at 12.3% CAGR.
Weather Derivatives
$17.4B (2024), projected $39.6B by 2033. Trading volumes surged 260% in 2023 (CME Group).
Existing Players
Arbol ($60M raised, Chainlink oracles), Etherisc (17,000 Kenyan farmers), Lemonade Foundation (Avalanche DAO), Descartes Underwriting (400+ clients).
The Gap
No self-serve parametric insurance for individuals. No proactive hedging. No dynamic pricing based on real-time AI forecasts. SMBs are completely underserved.
Use Cases
Built for every weather-dependent decision.
Energy Trading
Weather drives energy price volatility. AI weather models produce intelligence 6–12 hours ahead of legacy providers. Your brother's trading desk is the first customer.
AI Agents
x402 micropayments ($0.005/call in USDC). MCP server for Claude/GPT. No account needed — agents pay per request autonomously. 30%+ of API demand growth will come from AI/LLM tools by 2026.
Drone Operations
HRRR 3km resolution for hyperlocal wind, precipitation, visibility. Pre-flight planning, in-flight monitoring. No professional weather MCP server exists for drones — wide open.
Agriculture
AI crop yield prediction (85–95% accuracy vs 60–70% traditional). Frost alerts. Field-level soil moisture. Proactive weather protection for farmers — the Layer 3 vision.
Parametric Insurance
Trusted, verifiable weather data at specific GPS coordinates triggers automatic payouts. Chainlink oracles, smart contract settlement. $21B market growing 12%+ annually.
Renewable Energy
Solar irradiance and wind generation forecasting at the individual turbine/panel level. Every wrong forecast = millions in trading PnL. Renewables are 30%+ of global power.
Pricing
Pay for what you use. No annual contracts. No salesperson.
Free
$0
10,000/mo
- GFS model only
- 3-day forecast
- 2 calls/sec
- Commercial use OK
Starter
$29/mo
100,000/mo
- All models (GFS + ECMWF + HRRR)
- 7-day forecast
- Alerts
- 10 calls/sec
Pro
$99/mo
500,000/mo
- 16-day forecast
- Historical (ERA5)
- Solar + marine + AQ
- 30 calls/sec
Business
$299/mo
2,000,000/mo
- AI models (Earth-2)
- Ensemble data
- Priority queue
- 100 calls/sec
Enterprise
Custom
Unlimited
- SLA + dedicated support
- Custom models
- On-prem option
- Bulk historical
Pay-as-you-go
$0.001/call (standard data) or $0.005/call (AI model). No commitment. No minimum.
x402 for AI Agents
$0.005/call in USDC on Base. No account needed. AI agents pay per request autonomously via HTTP 402.
vs. Incumbents
DTN and AG2 charge $50,000–$500,000/year for weather intelligence with mandatory sales conversations. Qanto starts at $0/month and scales to $299/month for full AI model access. 10–100x cheaper, self-serve, and the incumbents can't offer this without cannibalizing their enterprise revenue.
API Reference
Quick start — from zero to working integration in under 5 minutes.
Authentication
# All requests require a Bearer token
curl "https://api.qanto.com/v1/weather/london" \
-H "Authorization: Bearer qnt_live_YOUR_API_KEY"
# Or for AI agents via x402 (no API key needed):
# Agent sends request → receives HTTP 402 → pays USDC → retries with payment proofQuick Start (Python)
import requests
response = requests.get(
"https://api.qanto.com/v1/weather/40.71,-74.01",
headers={"Authorization": "Bearer qnt_live_abc123"}
)
data = response.json()
print(f"Temperature: {data['current']['temperature_c']}°C")
print(f"Wind: {data['current']['wind_speed_ms']} m/s")
# Intelligence endpoint
impact = requests.get(
"https://api.qanto.com/v1/intelligence/impact",
params={"location": "51.5,-0.12", "operation": "wind_farm"},
headers={"Authorization": "Bearer qnt_live_abc123"}
)
print(f"Impact Score: {impact.json()['impact_score']}/10")Alert Rules
# Create a custom weather alert
curl -X POST "https://api.qanto.com/v1/alerts/rules" \
-H "Authorization: Bearer qnt_live_abc123" \
-H "Content-Type: application/json" \
-d '{
"name": "North Sea Wind Drop",
"location": { "lat": 55.0, "lon": 3.0 },
"condition": "wind_speed_ms < 5",
"forecast_window_hours": 48,
"notify": {
"webhook": "https://your-system.com/weather-hook",
"slack": "#energy-desk"
}
}'Built for Machines
AI agents, drones, robots, and autonomous systems are first-class consumers.
x402 Payments
AI agents pay $0.005 per call in USDC via the x402 protocol (Coinbase). No account, no API key — just HTTP 402 → pay → get data. Works on Base, Polygon, and Solana.
MCP Server
Professional-grade weather tools for Claude, GPT, and any MCP-compatible agent. Tools: get_forecast, get_impact, get_anomalies, get_demand. No demo-grade weather MCP server exists today — this would be the first.
Structured for Agents
Every response includes confidence scores, source attribution, cache TTL, and machine-parseable field names. Designed for automated decision-making, not human eyeballs.
x402 Flow
# AI agent requests weather data
GET /v1/weather/london HTTP/1.1
# Server responds with payment instructions
→ 402 Payment Required
X-Payment-Amount: 0.005
X-Payment-Currency: USDC
X-Payment-Address: 0x...
X-Payment-Network: base
# Agent signs USDC payment, retries with proof
GET /v1/weather/london HTTP/1.1
Payment-Signature: 0x...
# Server verifies payment, returns data
→ 200 OK
{ "current": { "temperature_c": 12.3, ... } }Research Foundation
The state-of-the-art AI weather models that Qanto builds on.
The field moved from “can AI match NWP?” (settled 2023) to “can AI replace the entire forecasting pipeline?” (answered yes by Aardvark, 2025) in three years. The models are commoditizing. The value is in the application layer.
Atlas (NVIDIA Earth-2)
arXivSOTA probabilistic forecasting, outperforms GenCast. Fully open (Apache 2.0).
Read paperAardvark Weather
NatureReplaces entire NWP pipeline. Raw observations → forecasts. Runs on a desktop.
Read paperAurora (Microsoft)
Nature1.3B param foundation model. Weather + air quality + ocean waves. 5,000x faster than IFS.
NeuralGCM (Google/MIT)
NatureHybrid physics+ML. Does both weather (15 days) and climate (40+ years).
Read paperECMWF AIFS
arXiv / OperationalFirst ML model deployed operationally at a major weather center.
Read paperGraphCast (Google DeepMind)
ScienceThe inflection point. Beat ECMWF HRES on 90% of targets.
Read paperPangu-Weather (Huawei)
NatureFirst AI to surpass NWP accuracy. 10,000x speed improvement.