Norway Halts Deep Sea Mining Plans
Parliament has called for a moratorium. The European Investment Bank has excluded seabed minerals from all financing, while the European Commission is calling for a ban until it can be proven that mining will not harm the marine environment. They are joined by more than 60 major companies, including Google, BMW and Storebrand, and nearly 1,000 marine scientists from 70 countries who also warn against opening the deep sea to mining
![Aerial view of the Rock Islands and coral seascape at the Republic of Palau. [Photo credit: The Nature Conservancy]](https://images.marinetechnologynews.com/images/maritime/w200h200padcanvas/aerial-view-rock-165050.jpg)
Bezos Funds AI Nature Projects
a true impact.”The winning projects span five continents, from an AI-driven coral reef monitoring network in the Pacific to a weather forecasting model designed for African farmers.The awardees were chosen following a global innovation sprint supported by partners including Amazon Web Services, Google.org, Microsoft Research, Ai2, and Esri, who provided mentorship, tools, and computing resources to help move ideas from concept to impact.Plymouth Marine Laboratory (PML) was one of the 15 selected. The university’s project involves advancing its Deep Vision project to use AI to greatly accelerate
Blue Water Autonomy Appoints Advisory Board
, integrate new technologies responsibly, and strengthen the industrial base. Each of these leaders brings a firsthand understanding of Navy acquisition priorities and operational needs."The announcement follows a string of recent company milestones, including a $50 million Series A investment led by Google Ventures, securing a shipyard partnership with Conrad Shipyards to begin vessel construction, a new Washington D.C. office, and recent executive hires.Anderson most recently served as the Navy's Program Executive Officer for Ships, where he oversaw the acquisition and delivery of surface combatants
Subsea Cables Accellerate Africa’s AI Potential
a 48-fibre-pair architecture, a leap in design tailored for high-capacity, low-latency AI workloads. Cable landing stations will transform into AI communication nodes, seamlessly linking African nations’ sovereign AI infrastructure to global data hubs.More AI developments are underway. Google has unveiled plans to build four new subsea cable hubs across African corridors. It’s Equiano system already serves several African countries, and the new projects will serve around 20. Google is also investing $9 million in AI training and research in African universities.Meanwhile, Japan
Google-Backed Coalition to Help Scale Up CO2 Removal
A coalition backed by Google, Stripe and Shopify will spend $1.7 million to buy carbon removal credits from three early stage firms on behalf of the tech giants to help scale up the nascent markets, an executive told Reuters.The world is expected to need to suck between five and 10 billion tons a year of carbon emissions out of the atmosphere by mid-century to reach its climate goals, yet at the moment most technologies are small scale.The coalition, called Frontier, is also backed by H&M Group, JPMorgan Chase and Salesforce, among others.The group, which aggregates demand from its members, will
Lander Lab: Selection Criteria for Underwater Cable and Connectors
, MCBH) https://amphenolltw.com/product-info/DeepTronica/ Made in China for Amphenol.Birns https://birns.com/ Blue Link https://blue-linked.com/underwater-connectors Blue Robotics https://bluerobotics.com/product-category/cables-connectors/ Burton Subsea Connector (Eaton) (Google “Burton Subsea”)Dragonfish https://dragonfishmfg.com/ Electro Oceanics (EO) (Eaton/Cooper Interconnect) (Google Electro Oceanics Cooper)Hydro Group Systems https://www.hydrogroupsystems.com/ Marsh Marine The original. The name is still around.Souriau-Sunbank (Eaton) https://usa
Whale Alert App Is Now Available in Europe
sightings, while also identifying the species observed. The recorded sightings are sent automatically to a central database, which cetacean biologists use to better understand whale presence, feeding, and migration patterns. Whale Alert application is available free of charge on Apple App Store and Google Play.
Writing is Thinking
This week, researchers at the University of Florida found that while AI can be a valuable assistant, it falls short of replacing human scientists in many critical areas.The researchers tested how well popular generative AI models including OpenAI’s ChatGPT, Microsoft’s Copilot and Google’s Gemini could handle various stages of the research process. They put these AI systems through six stages of academic research – ideation, literature review, research design, documenting results, extending the research and final manuscript production – while limiting any human
Golden Software updates Surfer Mapping Tech
Golden Software added the ability to download georeferenced Google aerial and satellite images to map projects in the latest version of its Surfer mapping and 3D visualization package. Other new features focus on faster and simpler creation of 3D visualizations that are easier to interpret and understand.Surfer enables users to model data sets, apply an array of advanced analytics tools, and visually communicate the results in a way that even the non-technical stakeholders can understand. Surfer is used by more than 100,000 people worldwide, many involved in environmental consulting, water resources
August 2025
