Lloyd’s Register (LR), in collaboration with COSCO Shipping Group, Shanghai Jiao Tong University and the University of Southampton, has established the International Maritime Future Technologies Innovation Centre.
The new virtual center aims to advance research and development in low- and zero-carbon maritime technologies, intelligent ship systems and digital innovation. It will serve as a global platform for collaboration between industry and academia, focused on translating research into practical, scalable solutions for deployment across global fleets.
Led by COSCO Shipping Group, the Centre will draw on each partner’s specialist strengths in technical standards, alternative fuels, vessel performance, intelligent navigation and digital modeling. Using COSCO Shipping’s extensive operational data and fleet network, it will test and validate new technologies that can deliver practical, real-world decarbonization solutions.
The founding partners have also established a technical committee to oversee research direction, ensure the continuity of innovation and align the Centre’s work with the maritime industry’s evolving technical and regulatory needs.
“This partnership is about turning ambition into action,” said Nick Brown, LR’s Chief Executive Officer, Together with our partners, we are investing in the ideas, data and technologies that will help the maritime industry meet the challenges of the energy transition head-on and drive change that benefits both business and society.”
Prior to the Centre’s establishment, LR worked alongside the Shanghai Shipping and Science Research Institute (a branch of COSCO Shipping Group) and Shanghai Jiao Tong University to develop a techno-economic model for fleet energy transition. The model assesses multiple decarbonisation pathways and their associated costs, providing data-driven tools to support informed decision-making across the sector. The success of this collaboration laid an important foundation for the creation of the new innovation center.
“The challenges the maritime industry faces in decarbonisation are global and can only be tackled through global collaboration,” said Professor Fraser Sturt, Director of Southampton Marine and Maritime Institute (SMMI) at the University of Southampton.
