Korea’s Ministry of Oceans and Fisheries (MOF) and Ministry of Trade, Industry and Energy (MOTIE) have launched the Autonomous Ship AI Data Platform Project, with 25 organisations, including shipping lines and shipbuilders, signing agreements to share data and collaborate on the initiative.
The project will run for four years until 2029 with a total budget of approximately US$23.9 million, consisting of approximately US$20.7 million in public funding (30 billion KRW) and US$3.2 million in private investment (4.606 billion KRW).
The initiative aims to systematically collect and analyse real-world operational data from operations at sea to train Artificial Intelligence (AI) models, which the partners view as an essential foundation for the development of autonomous functions such as collision avoidance, route optimisation, and equipment failure prediction.
“The competitiveness of the autonomous ships that South Korea will produce in the future will ultimately be determined by the quality of data. Let us create the world’s best data bank by actively sharing and combining the data held by each company,” said Park Dong-Il, Industry Policy Office Director at MOTIE (translated from Korean).
The Korea Research Institute of Ships and Ocean Engineering (KRISO) will be responsible for the technical implementation of the project. KRISO will be tasked with collecting 100 types of data across eight core sectors, including navigation, engine systems, remote control, and digital twins.
By organising and standardising this data, the government intends to provide high-quality datasets that can be used by both large and small shipbuilders for AI development.
“Autonomous ships are at the centre of the changes in decarbonisation and digitalisation facing the shipping and shipbuilding industries. The operational data accumulated through this project will be one of the most important means for responding to international standards,” said Kim Hye-Jeong, Director of the Maritime Logistics Bureau at MOF (translated from Korean).
The initiative is connected to a larger approximately US$400 million (600 billion KRW) Korean government project in partnership with local maritime stakeholders focused on the development of fully autonomous navigation technology, with current plans targeting a release of a first basic plan for the promotion of autonomous ship development and commercialisation during 2026.
