Maritime Cloud, a concept for a global platform for sharing standardized maritime information

A Danish-led three-year maritime innovation project financed by the EU and launched in May 2015, EfficienSea2, is seeing consistent progresses towards its realization. The most important and innovative part of the project, the Maritime Cloud, has been developed by Danish Maritime Authority and is being debated by an international high-level user group, consisting of maritime organizations, such as ICS, BIMCO, CESMA, IALA and the Nautical Institute, technological companies such as Ericsson, Maersk Maritime Technology and IBM as well as potential e-navigation service providers and authorities.
Maritime Cloud is a concept for a global, standardized infrastructure for sharing maritime information, a ground-breaking communication tool that will strengthen the exchange of information to enhance safety of navigation and increase efficiency at sea.
The project consortium consists of 32 partners from 12 different EU countries. 13 of the partners are Danish organizations and companies. The declaration of support from the EU states: “There’s no doubt that this project is ground-breaking and holds a high potential for innovation. This will pave the way to, and fast track to, the introduction and use of modern communication, navigation and administrative systems that better match the companies’ requirements for efficiency and increased safety as well as improved usability.”
By now, Maritime Cloud has matured so much that it is ready to receive feedback from relevant international maritime organizations and companies. The 32 partners of the project and international organizations have been asked to debate on standardization and international spreading of the solutions suggested by Maritime Cloud.
”We have been working with the concept of the Maritime Cloud for a couple of years and look much forward to listening to input from the most important global maritime players. We are keen to hear their perspectives on how such a global communication infrastructure can be managed and which business models can support it,” says Bjørn Borbye Pedersen from the Danish Maritime Authority.
The Danish Maritime Authority expects that the first version of the Maritime Cloud will be ready before the end of 2016. The next step will be to finalize a wide range of new digital services within the areas of navigation and automatic ship emission reporting and monitoring, developing more inexpensive and more efficient communication channels at sea to improve safety at sea.
“If we are to succeed with the ambition to create a global infrastructure, it is decisive to have the most important global stakeholders on board. It is positive to see that other projects in Sweden and South Korea have chosen to base their solutions on the infrastructure of the Maritime Cloud,” explains Bjørn Borbye Pedersen. Perspectives for spreading the Maritime Cloud globally are becoming more and more real.