Southern Marine Science and Engineering Guangdong Laboratory
Audio Guide
Riding the Wind from the South China Sea, a Thousand Sails Set Forth. With the strong support of the Guangdong Provincial Party Committee and Government, the Zhuhai Municipal Party Committee and Government, and Sun Yat-sen University, the Southern Marine Science and Engineering Guangdong Laboratory (Zhuhai) (hereinafter referred to as the "Laboratory") was officially established in 2018. As a provincial scientific research institution established by the Zhuhai Municipal People's Government, the Laboratory benchmarks itself against internationally advanced laboratories. It operates under the model of "government ownership, university management," adhering to the principles of "co-construction, sharing, and win-win." Upholding the "triple-drive" development strategy of serving "international scientific frontiers, major national needs, and local economic development," the Laboratory collaborates with 43 domestic and international universities, research institutions, and enterprises to advance together, building dreams in the deep blue.
The Laboratory implements a director responsibility system under the leadership of a board of directors and the guidance of an academic committee, while also leveraging the political leadership role of the Party Committee. Guided by the "Four Orientations," the Laboratory has established a substantive organizational structure supported by goal-oriented innovation teams, frontier research centers for free exploration, open and shared public platforms, and efficient service-oriented administrative departments.
Located within the marine discipline building complex of Sun Yat-sen University's Zhuhai campus, the Laboratory's main building has a floor area of over 100,000 square meters. Major scientific and technological infrastructure includes the "Zhu Hai Yun" intelligent unmanned system mother ship, the "Sun Yat-sen University" comprehensive oceanographic research and training vessel, the "Tianhe-2" supercomputer, the Wanshan offshore test site, and a number of marine engineering test facilities.
The Laboratory has currently gathered over 1,100 talents of various types, including more than 110 national-level high-level talents. It has formed a high-quality talent team led by leading scientists, with young and middle-aged scientific and technological backbones as the main body, whose comprehensive strength is continuously improving. Simultaneously, through industry-academia-research collaboration and multidisciplinary integration, the Laboratory vigorously cultivates high-level postgraduates, aiming to build a highland for marine talents.
Aiming for "world-class, domestically leading" status, the Laboratory has established eight major public marine research platforms: the Vessel Operation Management Center, Marine Data Center, Marine Biological Resource Bank, Marine Elements and Isotopes Platform, Wanshan Offshore Test Site, South China Sea Four-Based Observation System, Marine Engineering Technology Test Platform, and Marine Remote Sensing Information Center. These platforms are gradually laying the foundation of hard power for the Laboratory's development. Currently, the Laboratory has assembled a high-quality professional technical team of nearly 70 people, with total equipment value exceeding 1.4 billion RMB, including over 600 large pieces of equipment valued at over 300,000 RMB each. It can provide high-quality, high-level, and efficient technical services such as testing, scientific surveys, technical consulting, data analysis, and processing, and has achieved comprehensive open sharing.
The Laboratory focuses on promoting the development of new quality productive forces, insisting on the mutual reinforcement and dual strength of industry and technology. It prioritizes four core tasks: "Marine Ranching and Healthy Aquaculture, Marine Engineering and Intelligent Equipment, Marine Security and Disaster Prevention/Mitigation, and Marine Ecological Environment and Carbon Sink." It has achieved a series of landmark accomplishments, such as: overseeing the construction of the world's first intelligent unmanned system mother ship, "Zhu Hai Yun"; creating the world's first intelligent agile three-dimensional ocean observation system; independently researching, developing, and designing the country's first new intelligent deep-sea aquaculture platform "Zhu Hai Qin" equipped with a autonomously lifting and folding net cage; developing the world's first marine digital twin engine (DTO), and one-stop, full-chain construction of the "Marine Digital Twin Application Platform for the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area Demonstration Zone"; founding the international journal OLAR, which is China's only marine science journal cooperating with the authoritative journal Science and the first marine field journal in China selected for the "High-Starting New Journal" project of the Excellence Action Plan for China's Sci-Tech Journals; solving the "bottleneck" problem of relying on foreign imports for high-quality Litopenaeus vannamei broodstock, and establishing a key technological model for ecological and healthy shrimp aquaculture; creating the country's first offshore 5G communication private network, solving the problem of remote numerical control transmission for offshore tests; developing multi-hazard, compound marine disaster early warning and forecasting technologies, and building a refined, intelligent, and efficient marine risk protection service system; developing new theories on land-sea-air interaction and the mechanisms of extreme disaster formation; and revealing the impact mechanisms of coastal ecosystem functions on carbon sinks.
Looking ahead, the Southern Marine Laboratory will continue to adhere to its fundamental positioning of "based in the Greater Bay Area, delving deep into the South China Sea, and having a global perspective," and its development philosophy of "advocating pioneering work and striving for excellence." It will persistently promote the construction of major tasks such as marine ranching, the intelligent agile three-dimensional ocean observation network, the digital twin ocean, the Wanshan offshore test site, the Ocean Negative Carbon Emissions Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Innovation Research Center (ONCE International Mega-Science Program), the Zhuhai-Hong Kong-Macao Marine Risk Monitoring and Early Warning Research Center, the Blue Sea Science and Technology Industrial Park, and the Zhuhai Marine Science Popularization Center. The Laboratory strives to become a national strategic scientific and technological force and an international frontier research center in the marine field, accelerate the transformation of scientific and technological achievements, contribute significantly to Guangdong and Zhuhai's mastery of the ocean economy, inject new momentum into building a "blue engine" for high-quality development in the Greater Bay Area, and make new and greater contributions to accelerating the building of China into a strong maritime country.