Antarctica is the coldest, driest and most inaccessible continent on earth. The extreme climate, the remoteness and the sparse human presence distinguish the white continent from the rest of the world. Yet we argue there is an urgent need for a an Antarctic Spatial Data Infrastructure (AntSDI).

Antarctica plays a key role in many scientific questions – of which those related to global climate change are probably the most prominent examples. In most of the related research activities the spatial component is crucial. This ranges from not getting lost during field work to advanced data mining in and across extensive spatially enabled data bases.

Scientific activities in Antarctica are coordinated by the Scientific Committee on Antarctic Research (SCAR). SCAR's Standing Committee on Antarctic Geographic Information (SC-AGI) coordinates mapping and geospatial information management in support of research in Antarctica. It is one of the oldest working groups of SCAR commencing operation in 1958 as the SCAR Working Group on Cartography to provide Antarctic research activities in the International Geophysical Year 1958/59 with cartographic reference material.

Almost five decades later the challenge of EGGI is to create and promote the Antarctic Spatial Data Infrastructure.

Critical for the success of AntSDI is the open standards based approach, the focus on enabling specifications and procedures and capacity building within the information community.