Black Marlin Defense Weekly- September 2nd, 2025
What Is a Digital Twin?
A digital twin is a dynamic, virtual replica of a physical system. In the maritime context, it means creating a living digital model of the ocean that is constantly updated with real-world data. Unlike static simulations, a digital twin uses machine learning (ML) to identify patterns, predict future states, and adapt its accuracy over time. Think of it as a feedback loop: sensors collect observations, models update in real time, and AI systems learn from those inputs to better predict how the physical ocean will behave.
Digital twins are already being applied in aerospace, energy, and manufacturing. But applying the same fidelity to the ocean is uniquely challenging.
The Sensor Scarcity Problem
On land, the data inputs for digital twins are abundant: weather stations, satellites, traffic sensors, and IoT devices blanket our environment. Underwater, the story is very different. The ocean remains severely under-sensed with few buoys, scattered autonomous systems, and data collections that are costly and intermittent.
As Li Yun-zhou and colleagues note in their 2025 Journal of Marine Science and Engineering review article, “Digital twin technology… faces many challenges, including the complexity of data acquisition and processing, the accuracy and real-time performance of model construction, and the need for multidisciplinary cross-integration.”
This underlines the central issue: without sufficient, high-quality data, a digital twin of the ocean cannot achieve the fidelity required to train machine learning models effectively.
Why the Gulf of America?
The Gulf of America is uniquely positioned as the ideal microcosm to solve this problem.
- Scale and diversity: ~1.6 million km², ranging from shallow shelves to the 3,700-meter Sigsbee Deep
- Infrastructure density: More than 4,000 oil and gas platforms, plus extensive pipelines and busy shipping channels
- Environmental complexity: Loop Currents, hypoxic dead zones, and hurricane formation zones make the gulf one of the most dynamic bodies of water in the world
Few regions combine such oceanographic variety with immediate commercial, environmental, and national security relevance.
Transparent Ocean and Early Steps
Current programs like the Defense Innovation Unit’s Transparent Ocean solicitation are an important first step in tackling this challenge. But DIU is not alone in this space. Key stakeholders span the entire maritime community from the U.S. Coast Guard and the Army Corps of Engineers, to the Navy’s Oceanographic Office, NOAA, NGA, and even the NRO, since reconnaissance requires understanding the maritime backyard of both ourselves and our competitors.
The point is not to assign primacy to any one stakeholder, but to recognize that progress will require collaboration across services, agencies, academia, and industry.
The Path Forward
A validated Gulf digital twin would in addition to military application:
- Improve hurricane forecasting and coastal flood prediction
- Enhance infrastructure resilience by modeling corrosion, stress, and failure points
- Provide a realistic environment for training autonomous maritime systems
- Contribute to sustainable resource management and marine science
But none of this will be possible without addressing the fundamental data gap identified by Li and others: building the dense, high-quality datasets needed to train algorithms and validate models.
A Collaborative Call
The conversation around AI and ML in maritime systems often assumes the data is already there. It is not. That gap is both the challenge and the opportunity.
- Academic Anchors Along the Coast: The Gulf of America is also home to a plethora of academic institutions with strong programs in ocean engineering and unmanned systems. Universities such as the University of Southern Mississippi (USM), the University of Miami (UofM), Texas A&M, and others across Louisiana, Florida, Alabama, and Texas bring research capabilities, test ranges, and advanced laboratories. Their deep partnerships with federal agencies and industry ensure a steady flow of talent and ideas, making the Gulf not only a proving ground for technology but also an intellectual engine for digital twin development.
- Maritime Industrial Capacity: Equally important is the culture of vessel construction and maritime industry that defines the Gulf region. Shipyards, offshore service companies, and energy infrastructure operators provide a mature industrial base. This legacy of shipbuilding, offshore engineering, and maritime logistics ensures that efforts to build and maintain a digital twin can be implemented efficiently with strong local industry support. The Gulf’s existing industrial ecosystem is primed to serve as both a backbone and accelerator for this effort.
The Gulf of America, sitting right in our backyard, offers the complexity and scale to make progress now. What is needed is a broad, coordinated effort across academia, government, and industry to build the datasets, validate the models, and lay the foundation for a new frontier, a true Transparent Ocean. With this, the United States stands uniquely positioned to benefit greatly both militarily and commercially.
Lyu, Zhihan & Lv, Haibin & Fridenfalk, Mikael. (2023). Digital Twins in the Marine Industry. Electronics.
