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, Building Strength Toward the Sea," the conference attracted nearly one hundred academicians, experts, and scholars from more than 60 renowned universities, research institutes, and leading enterprises across multiple countries and regions at home and abroad, including the United Kingdom and South Korea. The conference focused on key areas such as frontiers of marine science and technology, marine engineering equipment innovation, and intelligent ocean systems for exchange and discussion, building a high-level international platform for academic cooperation.

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 building 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 has very important practical significance for us to better serve the maritime power strategy and support 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 smoothed China-foreign exchange channels for marine scientific and technological innovation, and accelerated the gathering of high-end marine talent, cutting-edge 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 also need to fully grasp these demands. Therefore, marine scientific and technological 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 exchange to jointly promote the high-quality development of marine engineering technology," said Atilla Incecik, former Vice President of the University of Strathclyde in the United Kingdom.

During the conference, four parallel sub-venues were also established, including High-end Ships 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.