For Immediate Release
March 26, 2025
(Vancouver, BC) – Today Canada’s Ocean Supercluster (OSC) announced three new ocean innovation projects valued at more than $10 million, including the $330,000 innovation ecosystem-building project called Blue AI: Readiness Assessment for the Blue Economy. This new OSC project will support up to 20 ocean economy companies as they become early adopters of Artificial Intelligence (AI) for ocean and marine businesses.
The project will bring together AI Adoption Advisors in the field of AI integration to assess the feasibility of implementing AI into businesses in the ocean economy. After assessing the feasibility of AI adoption across various business sizes, geography, and ocean economy subsectors, a report and framework will be developed containing meaningful statistics and aggregate information.
This project is led by Pacific Canada’s hub for the sustainable blue economy, COAST, and offered through their ocean workforce development and training initiative Blue Pathways. With a total project value of $330,000, Canada’s Ocean Supercluster is investing $200,000, with the balance coming from various partners including the BC Government, Coast Capital Savings, and industry partners.
AI in the ocean economy presents the opportunity to advance Canada’s global market competitiveness, help drive rapid growth potential and support the further scaling of existing and emerging ocean sectors. The project will benefit the ocean economy through the development of an assessment template that can be used to perform internal evaluations for ocean companies exploring early adoption of AI. Further, many of the lessons learned and best practices will be applicable and useful for industries outside the ocean economy, enabling avenues for growth across Canada’s broader economy.
Through Ambition 2035 and together with Canada’s ocean community, we are bold in our ambition to grow Canada’s ocean economy 5X to $220 billion by 2035. Continued investment in the accelerated development and commercialization of globally relevant, made in Canada ocean solutions, including the projects announced today, will help us realize this ambition. Read more about recommendations to help achieve this transformational growth opportunity outlined in Charting the Course to 5X Growth in Canada’s Ocean Economy.
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Media Contacts
Nancy Andrews
Canada’s Ocean Supercluster
nancy.andrews@oceansupercluster.ca
About Canada’s Ocean Supercluster
Canada’s Ocean Supercluster accelerates the development and commercialization of made-in-Canada ocean solutions in energy transition, food security, future of transport, and climate change while also growing more companies, creating more jobs, and attracting ocean talent. As Canada’s national ocean cluster, the OSC is a convenor of members, partners, and networks and a catalyst for transformative growth that helps build the robust ecosystem needed to help realize Ambition 2035 – a 5X growth potential in ocean in Canada by 2035. To date, the OSC has approved more than 120 projects valued at more than $500 million, which will deliver more than 300 new made-in-Canada ocean products, processes, and services to sell to the world.
About COAST
COAST is Pacific Canada’s hub for the sustainable blue economy. COAST’s mission is to build B.C. into a global leader in the world’s rapidly growing ocean economy, paving the way for new sustainable and export-driven jobs and enterprises. COAST has a membership of individuals, companies, and organizations involved in the region’s ocean economy, and opened British Columbia’s first ocean-focused coworking space, the 7,000 square foot COAST Ocean Innovation Hub, in October 2024. COAST is an initiative of South Island Prosperity Partnership (SIPP), Greater Victoria’s economic development alliance. Learn more at canadacoast.ca.
Quotes
“AI is an area of particular strength for Canada. The Blue AI: Readiness Assessment for the Blue Economy project will help us harness that strength, initially work with 20 companies towards AI adoption, providing data, and an approach and template that can be applied across the country to enable even more Canadian ocean companies to adopt and scale their AI capabilities.” – Kendra MacDonald, CEO, Canada’s Ocean Supercluster
“AI is poised to become a central enabler for competitiveness, resilience and growth in the blue economy. COAST’s Blue AI: Readiness Assessment for the Blue Economy project aims to explore the feasibility of infusing AI into ocean businesses and pinpoint opportunities for strategic investment and technological innovation. This project is offered through COAST’s Blue Pathways workforce development initiative and directly supports ocean entrepreneurs in their quest to differentiate themselves in an accelerating, global marketplace.” – Jason Goldsworthy, Executive Director, COAST