A technician inspects an Oceanalpha drone on a pond before a test in Zhuhai, China.
Photographer: Qilai Shen/BloombergA Maritime Revolution Is Coming, and No One’s in the Wheelhouse
- Oceanalpha’s unmanned boats map seabeds, monitor pollution
- Founder Zhang aims to build first autonomous cargo ship
In the vast, freezing Ross Sea, China’s “Snow Dragon” icebreaker needed to find a safe anchorage before it could begin its mission to set up China’s fifth Antarctic research station. The solution was to deploy one of Zhang Yunfei’s freezer-tested boat drones to map the ocean floor.
For Zhang, it was the latest in a string of government contracts — from surveying Tibetan lakes to testing river pollution — that have helped him turn a university project into China’s largest unmanned surface vessel company, one that has fired the interest of some of China’s biggest venture capitalists. In a pending round of funding, Oceanalpha Co. Ltd. may be valued at $780 million — about 40 times revenue — despite never having turned a profit.