AI is charting a new course in maritime research at Texas A&M Galveston
Two new courses through the SEA-AI project blend artificial intelligence with maritime research, covering topics including autonomous shipping, cybersecurity and business intelligence.
Once powered by wind and steam, today’s ships are increasingly driven by data, making the ability to protect vessels from cyberattacks more imperative than ever. Texas A&M University at Galveston is preparing students for the future of maritime business and research through two new courses being developed in an international partnership.
Texas A&M-Galveston has joined leading universities from Norway, South Korea, India and Japan in the SEA-AI project that aims to enhance students’ maritime education and research by integrating artificial intelligence and autonomous technologies. The project includes the creation of two blended courses on AI in maritime training and autonomous shipping with a variety of integrated technologies. Jean-Paul Rodrigue, professor in the Department of Maritime Business Administration, said these courses will cover simulator training, protecting ships from hacking attempts and AI-based performance analytics.
“Essentially, we want to train AI in a simulation environment and buy the equipment so all students have to do is put on goggles and get immersed in a navigation environment,” he said. “One course will be about autonomous shipping, and making sure your autonomous ship can’t be hacked.”
Rodrigue said they will also have a course focused on how AI can be used for maritime business management.
“It involves all the ways in which these agents and machine learning algorithms can be applied to business analytics, which could be market data, demand and traffic forecasting. Another aspect of it is how we can use AI to build more rigorous and informed teaching,” he said.
Current ships use a variety of information technologies including navigation software, telecommunication, the engine and ship inventory management to operate. Many of these systems are vulnerable to being hacked, making cybersecurity on the high seas a pressing issue, Rodrigue said.
“The great majority of cybersecurity issues in the maritime industry are linked with what we call ransomware. Basically, a hacker saying, ‘I’m going to idle or beach this ship somewhere or put it in the path of a collision unless I get monetary compensation,’” he said. This could involve simply disabling a core component, irrespective of whether it is an autonomous vessel or not. “A hacker could also try to ransom a ship, for the value of the cargo it contains. Another potentially more nefarious reason you’d want to disable a ship is as a form of warfare, impeding the commercial capabilities of your opponent.”
One of the primary objectives of the project is to strengthen international institutional cooperation by utilizing the European Credit Transfer system. Rodrigue said once students earn class credits, they are applicable throughout the European Union institutions, encouraging students to pursue education across the continent.
“The overall goal is to build international collaboration through joint research and joint student supervision. For Texas A&M, and especially our Galveston campus, it promotes our international visibility now that we’re a meaningful stakeholder in this research endeavor,” he said. “Right now, I have the budget to send two students to Norway in the spring of next year for a travel abroad program with all expenses paid for three months. Those are the kind of available resources we’re getting through this program.”
With the rapid development of AI technologies, Rodrigue said it’s hard to gauge the exact capabilities of the technology in the near future, and the SEA-AI project will continue to develop strategies for education and training until it officially accepts students.
“We’ll have space for 24 people in 2026, which is a lot of people,” he said. “Cybersecurity has become a part of the day-to-day lives of those who are working in a port terminal or a port authority, and AI has been evolving so rapidly that just two or three years ago, the discussion would have been radically different. Now, we’re talking about real effects that we need to prepare these students for.”
