Former MarineTraffic principal Argyris Stasinakis spoke to me this week about the launch of his latest endeavor, a digital network platform for maritime start-ups, and startled me with a number. 10,000. There are maybe 10,000 early-stage start-ups, in many cases barely more than an inkling of a research idea, but potentially ready to solve some of the problems that shipping faces.

Over the two decades I have been watching technology in shipping evolve, I have seen start-ups and ideas come and go. Argyris Stasinakis is one of three principals involved in the sale of MarineTraffic to Kpler, an angel investor, start-up mentor and now founder of Marinn, the Maritime innovation Network

 Of course, we know about the huge successes. Stasinakis had huge success with MarineTraffic. He was not the founder of the vessel tracking service, but one of three principals who made hay when the business was sold to Kpler. But there are, of course, those ideas that do not get the chance to grow, either due to timing, lack of focus or funding. Sure, not all these 10,000 ideas and start-ups will get to the finish line, where the founders can exit leaving their idea to grow on its own. But after all these years, after the hundreds, perhaps a thousand, that I have already forgotten, the fact that there could even be half that number is astonishing.

And a lot of it is because of AI. Even as I write this, I am sitting on an email from Lomar Shipping telling me they are to trial an AI listening solution, Signal Fusion, on some of its ships to monitor crew stress and fatigue. AI can now listen, it can talk, it can think and it can make decisions. And there are thousands of ways it can be used.

Not all the companies and ideas Stasinakis is talking about that could be part of his new network are digital start-ups developing AI tools. Some are engineering start-ups, a look at Lomarlabs portfolio reveals an eclectic range of companies. These are companies focusing on wind propulsion, carbon capture, robotic platforms, methane-busting technology, AI-driven aerodynamic retrofits, navigation autonomy, hydrogen fuel integration, crew recruitment, and now an AI crew welfare and safety tool.

There is an appetite for these ideas. Venture capital and other funds are on the hunt for investments, angel investors are circling and engineers and programmers have their ideas and drive. It is buoyant, it is bubbly, or as David Levy at OrbitMI once said to me, “it is frothy”. In short, this is the new age of maritime technology. In a decade or two, it may well be seen as a golden age of transition.