World’s Largest Shipbuilder CSSC Begins Developing AI Models For Ship Design

China State Shipbuilding Corp. (CSSC), the world’s largest shipbuilder, is exploring the use of artificial intelligence (AI) to support ship design, with engineers developing AI models to improve design efficiency while keeping human experts responsible for final decisions.

Speaking at the World Artificial Intelligence Conference (WAIC) in Shanghai, Gu Yiqing, deputy chief engineer of CSSC’s Shanghai Merchant Ship Design and Research Institute, said the company is working to prepare its large volume of shipbuilding data for AI training.

“The core challenge we are dealing with lies in consolidating these data resources, preparing them for AI, and training AI systems on them,” Gu said, adding that the process is “fraught with difficulties.”

She said that once these challenges are overcome, AI-assisted ship design could become widely used across the industry.

Engineers at the Shanghai institute, a CSSC subsidiary, have already started training small AI models to understand design codes, interpret technical specifications and extract key information from existing ship drawings.

“These foundational small models must be fully refined first before they can be integrated into a large-scale model,” Gu said.

CSSC is already using AI tools to compare design standards and verify engineering parameters. However, Gu said every AI-generated result is still checked by experienced engineers.

“Full reliance on AI for design work is not feasible at this stage,” she said, adding that shipbuilding countries around the world are at a similar early stage of adopting AI for vessel design.

The technology is expected to help engineers organise technical documents and design information more efficiently, while human experts continue to oversee and approve ship designs.

Gu previously led the design of Dazhi, described as the world’s first smart ship, and served as chief system architect for Ningyuan Diankun, the world’s largest pure-electric autonomous container ship.

Her comments came before a forum on AI applications in the maritime and shipbuilding industries hosted by CSSC during WAIC.

More than 200 researchers and industry representatives attended the event, which included presentations, panel discussions and updates on CSSC’s AI projects.

According to China’s Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, the country’s shipbuilding industry has ranked first globally for 16 consecutive years in shipbuilding output, new orders and outstanding orders.

Clarksons Research said China’s shipbuilding sector accounted for 63.3% of global shipbuilding output, 80.9% of new ship orders and 73.3% of outstanding orders in the first half of 2026, giving the country’s shipbuilders access to one of the industry’s largest pools of design and production data for AI development.

References: China Daily, ECNS