![The four pillars of cross-survey science infrastructure. Each is specified by community studies and demonstrated in prototype; none is currently funded or owned as a shared capability. -- [astro-ph.IM]](https://i0.wp.com/astrobiology.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/08/The-Cross-Survey.png?fit=1200%2C676&ssl=1)
[astro-ph.IM] By 2027, three flagship wide-field surveys will be operating simultaneously from ground and space, observing overlapping sky and representing more than $6 billion in US and European public investment.
Together they will produce overlapping petabyte-scale datasets across thousands of square degrees. This is a different class of challenge: the observations are no longer the bottleneck; realizing their joint scientific return now depends on shared computational infrastructure and coordination.
Decades of community studies show that combining these datasets does more than improve precision. For science ranging from weak lensing to transient discovery and Galactic-plane astronomy, joint processing and analysis can unlock capabilities no single survey provides alone.
Yet the required infrastructure — joint pixel-level processing, cross-calibration and validation, interoperable data access, and the people to build and sustain it — falls outside any single mission or institution’s mandate.
We issue a call to action for cross-survey science infrastructure, built around four pillars: (1) joint pixel-level processing and validation; (2) an AI-ready data substrate for scientific foundation models; (3) standardized, interoperable data access across surveys, democratizing participation in astrophysical discovery; and (4) dedicated personnel and career pathways.
We outline concrete steps for policymakers, agencies, observatories, universities, the research community, and philanthropy, and argue that the moment to act is now, while foundational technical choices can still be aligned at a fraction of the cost of reconciling them later.
Gioia Rau, Robert Benjamin, Federica Bianco, Ranga-Ram Chary, Andy Connolly, Cecilia Garraffo, Suvi Gezari, Leanne P. Guy, Željko Ivezić, Stephanie Juneau, Vicky Kalogera, Mansi M. Kasliwal, François Lanusse, Zack Li, Rachel Mandelbaum, Peter Melchior, Stella Offner, Antonella Palmese, Jason Rhodes, Edward Schlafly, Kartik Sheth, Rachel Street, Michael Troxel, Tony Tyson, Beth Willman, Michael Wood-Vasey, Yuanyuan Zhang
Comments: 23 pages, 1 figure. Community perspective on cross-survey science infrastructure
Subjects: Instrumentation and Methods for Astrophysics (astro-ph.IM); Cosmology and Nongalactic Astrophysics (astro-ph.CO); Astrophysics of Galaxies (astro-ph.GA)
Cite as: arXiv:2608.19272 [astro-ph.IM] (or arXiv:2608.19272v1 [astro-ph.IM] for this version)
https://doi.org/10.48550/arXiv.2608.19272
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Submission history
From: Gioia Rau
[v1] Tue, 18 Aug 2026 18:00:09 UTC (877 KB)
https://arxiv.org/abs/2608.19272
Astrobiology, Astronomy, Astrophysics,
