On August 8, the 8th International Conference on Ocean Science and Engineering Technology and the 2026 High-End Ship and Marine Engineering Equipment Innovation Seminar were held at Harbin Institute of Technology (Weihai). With the theme of "Intelligently Leading the Deep Blue, Strengthening the Nation Through the Sea," the conference attracted nearly 100 academicians, experts and scholars from the United Kingdom, South Korea and multiple other countries and regions at home and abroad, more than 60 renowned universities, research institutes and leading enterprises in the industry. The participants focused on key areas such as marine science and technology frontiers, marine engineering equipment innovation and intelligent ocean systems, conducting exchanges and discussions and building a high-level international academic cooperation platform.

Qian Hongliang, Vice President of Harbin Institute of Technology (Weihai), said: "This conference has become an important international exchange platform in the marine field. Over the years, HIT (Weihai) has actively responded to the strategic needs of building China into a maritime power and Shandong into a strong maritime province. Relying on its disciplinary advantages, it has continued to deepen talent cultivation and scientific research in the ship and marine field. It should be said that this conference is of very important practical significance for us to better serve the strategy of building a maritime power and help the high-quality development of the regional marine economy."

This conference gathered high-quality intellectual resources from home and abroad, focused on frontier hot topics in marine engineering, further unblocked channels for marine science and technology innovation exchanges between China and other countries, and accelerated the gathering of high-end marine talent, frontier technologies and high-quality innovation resources in Shandong, providing solid scientific and technological and talent support for the iterative upgrading of the province's ship and marine engineering industry and the improvement of quality and efficiency of the marine economy.

"The ship and marine engineering industry currently has a lot of development and has also put forward new demands, and students need to fully master these demands. Therefore, marine science and technology innovation requires global collaboration. We will continue to deepen Sino-foreign cooperative education and scientific research cooperation, and continue to make efforts in talent cultivation, joint research and academic exchanges to jointly promote the high-quality development of marine engineering technology," said Atilla Incecik, former Vice President of the University of Strathclyde, UK.

During the conference, four parallel sub-sessions were also set up, including High-End Ship and Marine Engineering, Marine Energy and Intelligent Unmanned Systems, the Dean's Forum on the Development of the Ship and Marine Engineering Discipline, and the Doctoral Student Forum. Participating experts and scholars conducted in-depth discussions on hot fields such as digital twins, AI ocean large models and deep-sea resource development.