OCEAN-X Project Launches Digital Twin of the Ocean for Macaronesia

5 November 2026
Edited By: Haley McQueen

The Canary Islands, the Azores, Madeira, Cabo Verde, Senegal, and São Tomé and Príncipe will collaborate on the development of an integrated Digital Twin of the Ocean for Macaronesia to improve innovation in strategic blue economy sectors, under the European project OCEAN-X, led by the Oceanic Platform of the Canary Islands (PLOCAN).

Six Atlantic island and coastal nations have joined forces under the EU-funded OCEAN-X project. (Image credit: PLOCAN)

The OCEAN-X partners—the University of Las Palmas de Gran Canaria (ULPGC); the Canary Islands Maritime Cluster; the Regional Agency for the Development of Research, Technology and Innovation (ARDITI) of Madeira; the University of the Azores; the International Association for the Development of the Atlantic (AIR Centre); the Association for Sea Development and Training (ADFMA) of the Azores; the Sea Institute of Cabo Verde; the National Aquaculture Agency of Senegal; and the Directorate of Fisheries and Aquaculture of São Tomé and Príncipe—presented the project at PLOCAN.

The OCEAN-X project is part of the INTERREG VI-D Madeira-Azores-Canary Islands (MAC) Programme, has a budget of €2.4 million and a duration of three years, will deliver the first integrated Digital Twin of the Ocean for Macaronesia, and promotes transnational cooperation and the smart modernization of the Macaronesian blue economy.

OCEAN-X aims to develop and implement innovative technological solutions combining in situ and synoptic observation, high-resolution numerical modelling and artificial intelligence (AI), through the joint development of Digital Twin of the Ocean techniques adapted to the needs of strategic blue economy sectors.

The project’s innovative solutions will provide harmonized ocean information, and digital tools and products adapted to the sustainable, efficient, and resilient management of the Macaronesian marine space, with full scalability to the eastern Mid-Atlantic, and will enable the co-development of solutions adapted to the needs of the different countries in the region.

In short, OCEAN-X proposes a coordinated fleet of autonomous marine platforms, both mobile and fixed, available across the region, which will generate FAIR data in real time—open data that comply with the principles of being findable, accessible, interoperable, and reusable. Together with historical time series, these data will feed high-resolution models capable of representing patterns and phenomena of scientific and socio-economic value.

The models will support the creation of products aimed at strengthening research, innovation, and the deployment of advanced technologies for strategic blue economy sectors. On the basis of a unified database, OCEAN-X will be able to develop and implement a modular operational interface of the Digital Twin of the Ocean type, aimed at improving the efficiency, sustainability, and resilience of the systematic uses and management of the region’s marine, coastal, and oceanic spaces, based on three representative and strategic use cases in the Azores, Madeira, and the Canary Islands.

By means of the disruptive integration of robotics, marine automation, big data, numerical modelling, and AI, the integrated Digital Twin of the Ocean for Macaronesia will provide a technological solution accessible to government agencies, companies in strategic blue economy sectors, research centers, and the general public, through products adapted to their specific needs.