🚢 TwinShip Interview: Building Trustworthy AI & Digital Twins for a Smarter and Greener Shipping Future! 🌍

How can Digital Twins, Artificial Intelligence (AI), secure data sharing and Decision Support Systems (DSS) transform the maritime industry towards a more sustainable future?

🎙️ In a recent TwinShip Horizon Europe project interview, Professor Lokukaluge Prasad Perera, Project Coordinator from UiT The Arctic University of Norway, shared insights into the project's development, technological innovations, current achievements and future vision for AI-powered maritime digitalisation and decarbonisation.

🔹 🔐 Building Trust Through Secure Data Sharing
One of the biggest challenges in maritime research is obtaining operational data from shipowners. TwinShip addresses this through the open-source VesselAI platform, enhanced with encryption, cybersecurity features and controlled data access to protect commercially sensitive information.

🔹 🚢 Developing Advanced Digital Twins
TwinShip combines physics-based knowledge, vessel operational data, machine learning and AI to develop more generalised Digital Twin models that can be continuously updated as new vessel data becomes available.

🔹 🧠 Integrating Generative AI with Digital Twins
Generative AI could transform how maritime professionals interact with complex digital systems. Future users could communicate in natural language with Digital Twins and DSS applications to obtain operational recommendations, visualisations and technical insights.

🔹 📊 AI-Powered Decision Support for Decarbonisation
TwinShip focuses on three key applications:

✅ Weather Routing – Optimising voyages to improve fuel efficiency and reduce emissions.

✅ Life Cycle Cost Analysis (LCCA) – Evaluating future technologies, retrofits and investment returns.

✅ Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) – Assessing emissions and the environmental benefits of alternative technologies.

🔹 🤝 Trustworthy Research–Industry Collaboration
The project brings together maritime experts, shipowners, technology providers, researchers and software developers. Building mutual trust, protecting confidential information and combining multidisciplinary expertise are fundamental to its success.

🔹 🎓 Human-Centred AI and Future Skills
As AI advances rapidly, continuous training, knowledge exchange and industrial involvement are essential to ensure that maritime professionals can understand, trust and effectively use these technologies.

🔹 🌐 Open-Source Innovation for European Shipping
TwinShip aims to make its technological developments reusable, allowing future researchers and industrial users to explore Digital Twin modelling, maritime decision support and AI-powered applications.

🌱 Beyond Technology: A Greener Maritime Future

The ultimate objective is not simply to digitalise ships, but to develop more energy-efficient maritime operations, reduce greenhouse gas emissions, support innovation, strengthen European competitiveness and contribute to a more sustainable society.

💡 The future of shipping lies in combining classical maritime engineering, reliable operational data, trustworthy AI and human expertise.

🚢 TwinShip aims to become a guiding light in the maritime industry's digital and green transition!

🚢 TwinShip Consortium & DataPACT project at the Shipping & Port Leadership Summer School 2026  Port of Constanța, Romania 🌍⚓

URL: https://bbs.ase.ro/programs/executive-certificates-master-classes/shipping-port-leadership/

The TwinShip Consortium Horizon Europe project, together with the DataPACT project Horizon Europe project, was presented during the second edition of the 𝗦𝗵𝗶𝗽𝗽𝗶𝗻𝗴 & 𝗣𝗼𝗿𝘁 𝗟𝗲𝗮𝗱𝗲𝗿𝘀𝗵𝗶𝗽 𝗦𝘂𝗺𝗺𝗲𝗿 𝗦𝗰𝗵𝗼𝗼𝗹, held at the Port of Constantața, Romania, from 21–25 September 2026.

The programme brought together professionals from private companies, public institutions, academia, and the maritime and port sectors for an intensive week of learning, discussion, and collaboration, with particular attention to the Middle Corridor and the future of maritime connectivity.

As part of Session 15, Lokukaluge Prasad Perera and Dumitru Roman, representing UiT- The Arctic University of Norway and SINTEF Digital, delivered the presentation “Digitalization, Decarbonization and Sustainability in Shipping” on 24 September 2026.

💡 The session explored how the maritime sector can combine digitalization and decarbonization through:
🔹 Digital Twins and Decision Support Systems for more efficient and sustainable ship operations
🔹 Weather routing, Life Cycle Cost Analysis and Environmental Impact Assessment
🔹 Digital Twin-enabled pathways towards zero-emission shipping
🔹 Standardized vessel data, ontologies and knowledge graphs for improved interoperability
🔹 Compliance-by-Design for maritime Data/AI operations
🔹 Secure and sovereign data spaces supporting trusted ship–port–authority information exchange
🔹 The role of digital infrastructure in supporting decisions across the Middle Corridor

The session was designed to show how ship data, digital twins and compliant data sharing can support corridor-level decision-making, followed by an interactive group exercise in which participants developed data-use cases for the Middle Corridor.

🚢 TwinShip is developing an open-source, Digital-Twin-enabled Decision Support System for zero-emission shipping, integrating system-of-systems DT models, vessel data spaces, data-quality governance, model evaluation and real-world pilot demonstrations.

🔐 DataPACT, coordinated by SINTEF, complements this work through Compliance-by-Design for Data/AI Operations and Pipelines, providing methods and tools for regulatory compliance, trustworthy data sharing, pipeline lineage and data spaces—capabilities with strong relevance to maritime digitalization and emissions reporting.

🤝 It was a valuable opportunity to connect research, regulation, technology and operational experience, and to discuss how European research and innovation can contribute to a more connected, data-driven, sustainable and resilient maritime transport system.