Crowds of more than 10,650 over the 3 days—23% up on Ocean Business 2023—gathered at the National Oceanography Centre (NOC) over three days of game-changing innovation, exciting product launches and quayside demonstrations as Ocean Business 2025 welcomed visitors from more than 80 countries to the Solent.
Across the expanded exhibition space and action-packed dockside, deals were done, new partnerships forged, existing relationships reinforced, and networks extended.
“The best one yet,” said Graeme McGhee of Scorpion Oceanics. “Head and shoulders above other expos,” said Stuart Howard, founder of Kuro Animation. “So many visitors from the very beginning and amazing conversations on all three days,” said Chris Wallace of Verlume.
The atmosphere fizzed with glimpses of the future, but it all started with a dive into the past as keynote speaker Mensun Bound held his capacity audience rapt with tales from the 2022 international quest to locate Ernest Shackleton’s ship Endurance.
With more than 350 exhibitors plus over 180 hours of training and demonstrations on the dockside, on board vessels and in the classroom, this year’s show offered insights into everything from R3Vox’s Voxometer, described by chairman Jens Steenstrup as a super advanced acoustic platform that does what multi-beams used to do ‘but on steroids’; to Hydrophis, a ‘revolution’ in analyzing underwater survey data, unveiled by Scottish firm Tritonia.
Some 24 companies shared space at the Canadian pavilion, seen as an economical way to meet everyone in one place and access markets around the world.
“We’d like to bring even more next time,” said Shelly Petten, Executive Director of Oceans Advance, who has been coming to the show for 18 years, representing Newfoundland and Labrador.
“Canada is an export nation, and the hope is to grow Canadian exports. We have a long trading history with the UK and, given the current US tariffs, we’re encouraging customers to target the European markets more.”
Alongside the exhibition and demonstrations, speakers and expert panels drawn from across the sector shared ideas to help shape the future of ocean technology.
Dr. Louise Butt of the Space South Central Enterprise Network spoke of the huge increase in maritime users of space technology, in particular with AI driven satellites. Over the next ten years, non-geostationary orbit satcomms is expected to surge from 20% to 90% and the number of vessels using at least one satcomm service will double, to 90,000.
And at the Doing Business with Defense session, the first event to be held in the NOC’s new Innovation Hub, Claire Budden, Deputy Director of Navy Commercial, spelt out the opportunities in the supply chain, with around £32 billion a year spent on defense contracts, likely to ‘accelerate rapidly’ as the government commits to spending 3% of GDP on defense in the next parliament.
Helping make Ocean Business a triumph was the Society of Marine Industries (SMI), whose chief executive, Tom Chant, said the exhibition “has long been a standout event on the industry calendar, and this year’s show proved exactly why.”
