/boat-drones-propel-one-of-china-s-hotte

  • A Maritime Revolution Is Coming, and No One’s in the Wheelhouse - Bloomberg
    https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2018-05-28/boat-drones-propel-one-of-china-s-hottest-startups


    A technician inspects an Oceanalpha drone on a pond before a test in Zhuhai, China.
    Photographer: Qilai Shen/Bloomberg

    In the vast, freezing Ross Sea, China’s “Snow Dragon” icebreaker needed to find a safe anchorage before it could begin its mission to set up China’s fifth Antarctic research station. The solution was to deploy one of Zhang Yunfei’s freezer-tested boat drones to map the ocean floor. 

    For Zhang, it was the latest in a string of government contracts — from surveying Tibetan lakes to testing river pollution — that have helped him turn a university project into China’s largest unmanned surface vessel company, one that has fired the interest of some of China’s biggest venture capitalists. In a pending round of funding, Oceanalpha Co. Ltd. may be valued at $780 million — about 40 times revenue — despite never having turned a profit.
    […]
    The big prize is cargo. Zhang has a new partnership with Wuhan University of Technology, China’s Classification Society and Zhuhai municipal government that will use artificial intelligence to direct autonomous container vessels.

    There will be a huge revolution in the maritime industry within three years,” Zhang said. “Cargo ships will be autonomous before cars.

    The project, called #Cloudrift — a reference to the Chinese legend of the monkey king, who could summon a cloud on which he traveled — is racing against rivals to build an unmanned cargo ship this year. Norway has created a test area for pilotless vessels in the Trondheim Fjord in a joint effort by the Norwegian University of Science Technology and companies including Rolls Royce.


    Oceanalpha’s drone with the “Snow Dragon” icebreaker in Antarctica.
    Source: Oceanalpha