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This interview was published in the Korea Institute for Advancement of Technology (KIAT) Policy Review Issue 8 (April 2026).
Next-generation maritime mobility in the age of AI and climate change: Future directions and national strategies
Interviewee
Professor Jeom-Kee Paik FREng is a tenured full professor in the Department of Mechanical Engineering at University College London (UCL) and serves as Director of the UCL Global Industrial Technology Cooperation Centre (UCL GITCC).
He is a globally recognised scholar, leading research in energy-sovereign ships, represented by SMR-powered vessels, the realisation of living cyber–physical systems for ships, and life-cycle-based, real-time intelligent integrated MRO (Maintenance, Repair and Overhaul) grounded in the M.AX concept. He founded and serves as Editor-in-Chief of the international journal Ships and Offshore Structures and is ranked No. 1 globally in naval engineering research according to ScholarGPS.
His honours include the David W. Taylor Medal (USA), the William Froude Medal (UK), the Order of Science and Technology Merit (Woongbi Medal), and the Kyung-Ahm Prize in Engineering. He also holds an honorary doctorate from the University of Liège in Belgium. Professor Paik is an International Fellow of the Royal Academy of Engineering (UK) and a Fellow of the Korean Academy of Science and Technology. In recognition of his academic contributions, the Royal Institution of Naval Architects (UK), with a history of over 165 years, has established the Jeom-Kee Paik Prize in his honour.
Q. Could you briefly introduce yourself?
I am currently Professor of Marine Technology in the Department of Mechanical Engineering at UCL, where I conduct research on extending the concept of M.AX (Manufacturing AI Transformation) into the next-generation maritime mobility sector. My primary research areas include the safety of ships and offshore structures under extreme conditions, accident mechanism analysis, and energy-sovereign ships alongside AI-based lifecycle-integrated intelligent ship management (MRO). Academically, I have investigated maritime accidents—such as collisions, groundings, fires, explosions, structural failures, and sinkings—where multiphysics phenomena interact, using a systems engineering perspective that integrates nonlinear numerical analysis with experimental methods. The focus lies not only on isolated damage or localised behaviour, but on identifying interaction mechanisms and failure processes at the whole-ship and system levels.
From an industrial standpoint, I have collaborated with the International Organization for Standardization (ISO), classification societies, and global shipbuilding and offshore companies to develop advanced technologies and establish safety regulations and design standards. This has enabled me to gain extensive experience in translating research outcomes into practical regulations and industrial standards.
More recently, I have been advancing the concept of Digital Healthcare Engineering (DHE), which redefines ships not as mere machines but as long-life systems requiring continuous “care” throughout decades of operation, ageing, and environmental exposure. DHE extends the automotive-centred M.AX concept into maritime mobility, aiming to establish a life-cycle engineering framework that integrates AI, digital twins, real-time monitoring, and AI-driven decision-making.
In particular, I apply this framework to high-risk, high-value, long-life maritime platforms—such as energy-sovereign ships (SMR-powered vessels) and autonomous ships—to ensure safety and sustainability in the context of climate crisis response and decarbonisation. Ultimately, my research seeks to establish a human-centred, systems-based engineering philosophy suited to the AI and climate crisis era, setting standards for next-generation maritime mobility that encompass safety, responsibility, and sustainability beyond mere technological advancement.
Q. What is the Department of Mechanical Engineering at UCL like?
University College London (UCL) is a leading research-intensive university, consistently ranked within the global top 10 in the QS World University Rankings, and 2026 marks its bicentenary. The Department of Mechanical Engineering undertakes research and education that address complex societal challenges across energy, mobility, AI, robotics, and bioengineering. Rather than focusing solely on improvements in technological performance, the department emphasises how transformative, world-changing technologies are implemented and operate within broader societal, industrial, and policy contexts.
In shipbuilding, offshore, and structural engineering, the focus extends beyond advancing analytical methods or computational techniques to linking design philosophy and safety concepts with international rules and standards. This reflects an expansion of engineering research to ensure that innovative technologies are applied safely and sustainably within industrial and regulatory frameworks. The integration of engineering, policy, industry, and societal impact constitutes a defining strength of UCL’s approach.
This perspective is particularly critical in sectors such as shipbuilding and offshore engineering, where technology and regulation are closely intertwined, especially during structural transitions such as decarbonisation, automation, and the adoption of the M.AX concept. The department is redefining the role of engineering in supporting future industries by integrating technological advancement with social trust and institutional acceptance.
Q. What are the key themes that run through your research?
The central themes of my research are the extension of M.AX into maritime mobility, decarbonisation, and the realisation of energy-sovereign ships. As emphasised in my recent lecture, “Transformative Technologies Shaping the Next Century of the Maritime Sector”, the transformation of the maritime industry is not incremental but fundamentally alters its mode of existence.
While M.AX has transformed automobiles into intelligent living spaces, maritime mobility is undergoing an even more fundamental shift. Ships, inherently designed for long-term independent operation, will evolve into living cyber–physical systems capable of self-awareness, decision-making, and survival. This transformation changes the core questions of safety engineering. Previously, shipbuilding focused on “how strong a structure can be built.” Today, the key question is “whether we can predict when, where, and through what mechanisms system failure begins.”
My research treats maritime accidents as dynamic system phenomena evolving through interactions over time, rather than isolated events. By integrating nonlinear numerical simulations with experimental approaches, I have investigated failure mechanisms at both local and system levels and translated findings into design standards and regulations. This perspective has evolved into Digital Healthcare Engineering (DHE), where ships are seen as entities requiring continuous care, integrating structures, machinery, environment, and human factors. Ships are no longer objects built and discarded but systems continuously managed through real-time monitoring, predictive analytics, and AI-driven decision-making throughout their lifecycle.
This approach is particularly essential for SMR-based energy-sovereign ships, where zero tolerance for accidents and operational lifespans exceeding 50 years are required. Ultimately, my research aims to establish a new engineering paradigm that transforms maritime mobility into intelligent infrastructure in the age of autonomy and decarbonisation.
Q. Could you introduce your collaborations with the Korean government and industry?
As Director of the UCL Global Industrial Technology Cooperation Centre (GITCC), supported by the Ministry of Trade, Industry and Resources (MOTIR) and the Korea Institute for Advancement of Technology (KIAT), I identify promising technologies and research groups at TRL 4–6 across the UK and Europe and connect them with Korea’s 12 national strategic industries. Core areas of collaboration include future mobility sectors such as next-generation automobiles, maritime, aerospace, and aviation.
At the individual research level, I collaborate with the Korean government and major corporations on SMR-powered vessels, autonomous ships (MASS), digital twins, and AI-based integrated MRO systems. The shared objective is to secure safety, sustainability, and regulatory acceptance for high-risk, high-value, long-life systems.
The ultimate goal is not merely technological development, but the transformation of the competitive structure of the shipbuilding industry. Korea has already achieved world-leading production capacity and efficiency; the next challenge lies in securing transformative technologies suited to the AI and climate crisis era. Through UK–Korea collaboration, I aim to contribute to Korea maintaining its global technological leadership and emerging as a leader in future maritime mobility.
Q. What is the most significant change in the global shipbuilding and shipping industry from a European perspective?
The maritime industry is a fundamental infrastructure underpinning human civilisation, with over 90% of global trade transported by ships. In the AI and climate crisis era, a shared European perspective is clear: the industry is no longer concerned solely with construction and transportation.
With increasingly stringent environmental regulations from the International Maritime Organization (IMO), alongside the adoption of alternative fuels and the proliferation of AI and digital technologies, ships are evolving into integrated systems that combine energy, information, and safety. Consequently, competitiveness is shifting from construction speed and cost towards design philosophy, safety regulation, and life-cycle management capability.
This represents a fundamental paradigm shift in engineering. Ships are increasingly becoming living cyber–physical systems that interact dynamically with their environment. The capacity to respond systematically and rapidly to these transformations will ultimately determine future competitiveness.
Q. Why do you emphasise that maritime decarbonisation is a “systems engineering problem”?
The International Maritime Organization (IMO) has established a mandatory roadmap targeting net-zero emissions by 2050. However, achieving this goal requires differentiated approaches depending on propulsion power requirements:
- Around 20 MW: Electric propulsion is viable for small- to medium-sized coastal vessels
- Around 50 MW: Alternative fuels such as ammonia, hydrogen, and methanol are promising for mid-sized ocean-going vessels
- Above 80 MW: Small modular reactors (SMRs) may offer a more viable solution for large or ultra-large ocean-going vessels requiring sustained high power
The challenge is that discussions on decarbonisation are often reduced to fuel selection. In reality, fuel transition alone is insufficient. True decarbonisation demands a transformation in design philosophy and operational concepts that integrate safety, sustainability, and economic viability.
For example, the high initial investment associated with low-carbon fuels or nuclear technologies necessitates extending vessel lifespans to beyond 50 years to amortise CAPEX (capital expenditure), alongside optimising OPEX (operational expenditure) through advanced maintenance and operational strategies. Furthermore, all alternative fuels introduce trade-offs in terms of safety, system complexity, and supply chain dependencies.
Maritime decarbonisation is therefore fundamentally a systems engineering problem, requiring integrated design, life-cycle management, and real-time intelligent control of living cyber–physical systems.
Q. What is the most important issue regarding ageing ships?
Many ships currently in operation have already exceeded their nominal design life of 25 years, with a significant number remaining in service for more than 30 years. In the case of SMR-powered vessels, whose construction costs may be more than double those of conventional ships, design lifespans are likely to extend to 50 years or more in order to ensure economic viability and optimise CAPEX. However, the central issue is not simply how long a vessel can be used, but whether we truly understand its current state of health.
For SMR-powered ships, stringent radiological safety requirements apply, while Level 4 autonomous vessels operate without onboard crew. In both cases, safe operation is not feasible without continuous, land-based, real-time management—what may be described as a system of “care”. This shifts the challenge beyond conventional maintenance into the domain of system-level risk management.
Corrosion, fatigue cracking, and mechanical degradation do not occur in accordance with scheduled inspection intervals. In reality, many critical failures originate during the “invisible periods” between inspections. As such, traditional inspection-based approaches are insufficient to ensure the safety of long-life vessels.
Ultimately, the core issue in ageing ships is not life extension per se, but state awareness. If the current condition of a vessel cannot be continuously and accurately determined, extending its operational life is not an engineering judgement but merely an assumption. In other words, long-term operation without continuous condition assessment and predictive management is less a matter of engineering than one of risk-taking.
Q. You emphasised the importance of SMR-powered vessels. How do they differ from conventional ships?
SMR-powered vessels can be regarded as the starting point of energy-sovereign ships—ships that must independently generate, manage, and control their own energy over several decades without external refuelling. Accordingly, their design philosophy differs fundamentally from that of conventional fuel-based vessels.
First, a long-life design, premised on a service life exceeding 50 years, is essential. Rather than refuelling intervals, the design lifespan itself becomes the key determinant of both economic viability and safety.
Second, enhanced structural resilience is required to ensure that safety can be maintained even under extreme accident scenarios such as collision, grounding, fire, explosion, structural collapse, and sinking.
Third, a real-time state awareness system is necessary to continuously monitor the condition of the vessel and maintain safety throughout its entire operational life.
In particular, for SMR-powered vessels, it is not sufficient merely to prevent accidents. Even when accidents occur, the vessel must be capable of maintaining safety and recovering functionality; this constitutes a fundamental design requirement. The approach that enables these requirements to be met simultaneously is a Digital Healthcare Engineering (DHE)-based, real-time, intelligent, life-cycle-integrated MRO (Maintenance, Repair and Overhaul) system.
Ultimately, SMR-powered vessels are not simply an evolutionary extension of conventional ships, but a representative case that most clearly necessitates a new engineering paradigm.
Q. What are the implications of the “Titanic: Digital Resurrection” project that you led?
The RMS Titanic collided with an iceberg on its starboard side at 11:40 PM (ship time) on 14 April 1912 in the North Atlantic, and sank approximately 2 hours and 40 minutes later, at around 2:20 AM on 15 April. Of the 2,224 passengers and crew on board, more than 1,500 perished. This tragedy raised fundamental questions regarding ship design, safety, and emergency response systems.
Since the wreck was discovered in 1985 approximately 370 nautical miles south-southeast of Newfoundland, Canada, at a depth of about 3,800 metres, detailed investigations have been conducted using advanced deep-sea exploration technologies such as remotely operated vehicles (ROVs), manned submersibles, and 3D photogrammetry. Nevertheless, several key engineering questions remained unresolved: the precise nature of the iceberg-induced hull damage, the time-dependent progression of flooding, the structural failure mechanisms that caused the hull to break apart, and whether the outcome would have differed under a head-on collision scenario.
The “Titanic: The Digital Resurrection” project was undertaken to provide scientific answers to these questions through digital reconstruction. Commissioned by Atlantic Productions to coincide with the 113th anniversary of the disaster, the project was led by myself and carried out by the University College London Department of Mechanical Engineering research team. Using UCL’s high-performance supercomputing capabilities, we digitally reconstructed the final hours from collision to sinking based on physics-based validation. The results were broadcast in documentaries by BBC and National Geographic. The research findings were also published as an open-access paper in the international journal Ships and Offshore Structures, and key simulation videos have been made publicly available.
In this study, nonlinear finite element analysis (NLFEA) and computational fluid dynamics (CFD) were integrated to model the entire process—iceberg impact, progressive flooding, loss of buoyancy, structural response, and final fracture—as a single continuous physical system. In addition, a counterfactual “head-on collision” scenario was analysed to quantitatively assess how the outcome might have differed, with results indicating that the vessel could have remained afloat in such a case.
The simulation results demonstrate that the sinking of the Titanic was not caused by a single factor, but was an inevitable outcome of accumulated physical laws and system interactions. The key lesson is that large-scale maritime accidents are not merely subjects of post hoc analysis, but can be transformed into predictable problems through integrated, physics-based engineering modelling. This insight can be directly applied to the safety assessment of ageing ships, the design of SMR-powered vessels, and the operational concepts of future autonomous ships.
I consider this project not merely a digital reconstruction of a past tragedy, but an engineering turning point that helps redefine the safety philosophy of future maritime mobility.
Q. What role will DHE play in SMR-powered vessels, autonomous ships (MASS), and Human-Centred Engineering?
Digital Healthcare Engineering (DHE) is not merely a maintenance technology; it is a core infrastructure underpinning the safety of ships operating in future environments where crew numbers are significantly reduced or entirely absent. In the case of SMR-powered vessels, risks such as radiation leakage cannot be adequately managed through one-off inspections or periodic checks alone. Instead, real-time, life-cycle-integrated management is essential, and DHE provides the foundational system to enable this.
Furthermore, Level 4 autonomous ships (MASS) lack onboard personnel capable of immediate intervention. Consequently, real-time state awareness, predictive risk assessment, and the robust integration of decision-making with shore-based control centres become prerequisites for safe operation.
In this context, DHE functions as the “eyes, nervous system, and memory” of the vessel. It enables ships to operate as unified living systems by integrating the management of hull structures, mechanical and energy systems, environmental conditions, and even human cognitive states and fatigue factors.
Importantly, DHE does not replace Human-Centred Engineering; rather, it extends it. It is a safety framework designed with full recognition of human limitations, and its necessity and significance will continue to grow as system complexity and autonomy increase.
Q. Finally, what message would you like to convey to Korean policymakers regarding next-generation maritime mobility represented by M.AX?
Korea’s shipbuilding and maritime industry has long been a core strategic national sector, and its importance remains unchanged. Without a stable supply of ships, the reliable transport of global trade would not be possible; the industry is therefore not merely one among many, but a foundational pillar sustaining human civilisation. This is why, even amid recent shifts in the global trade environment, the competitiveness of Korea’s shipbuilding industry continues to be regarded as a critical national asset.
However, in the era of AI and climate change, the industry must transition into a new domain based on the concept of M.AX. Competitiveness is no longer determined solely by the speed of technological development or the performance of individual technologies. Rather, it depends on how AI and digital technologies are embedded within an overarching engineering philosophy, system rules, and long-term vision—that is, who defines reliable systems across the entire life cycle.
This perspective underpins the “Four Elements Theory for First-Class Industries and Nations” that I have proposed. Sustainable top-level performance can only be achieved when four elements are integrated in a balanced manner: the best infrastructure, the best talent, the best technology, and the best vision and strategy. These are interdependent conditions; the absence of any one element precludes success.
Korea already possesses world-class technological capabilities and execution capacity. What is now required is a strategic transition from technology-centred engineering to human-centred, systems-based engineering. AI should not be viewed merely as a tool for automation, but as a core component of engineering systems—ensuring that humans remain the ultimate decision-makers in matters of safety, ethics, and responsibility.
In M.AX-based next-generation maritime mobility, ships will evolve beyond simple transport platforms into long-life, intelligent infrastructure integrating energy, information, and safety. Ageing infrastructure management, autonomous navigation, AI-based decision-making, SMR-powered energy-sovereign ships, and energy-independent maritime platforms are, at their core, problems of real-time, intelligent, life-cycle-integrated systems. Addressing these challenges requires the integration of AI, digital twins, real-time data, human–system interaction, and new paradigms of safety and regulation.
If Korea utilises AI only within frameworks established by other countries, it will be difficult to avoid structural constraints. In the AI era, industrial sovereignty begins not with the technology itself, but with who defines the rules under which the technology operates and its engineering context. By proactively establishing a human-centred engineering philosophy—grounded in safety, sustainability, and life-cycle governance, with a century-long perspective—Korea can evolve beyond a technological leader into a nation that shapes global standards: a true rule-setter