American technology giant NVIDIA is accelerating the introduction of AI technology into the global shipbuilding industry. Following South Korea's two major shipbuilding companies, which took the lead in deploying the NVIDIA AI platform, Kawasaki Heavy Industries, a large Japanese shipbuilding company, will also cooperate with NVIDIA.
Nvidia joins forces with Kawasaki Heavy Industries to build Japan’s next generation smart shipyard
On July 16, Japan's Kawasaki Heavy Industries announced that it has officially launched a project to build a next-generation digital shipyard (Digital Shipyard) using NVIDIA's Physical AI and Digital Twin technology in the field of shipbuilding.
The project will combine Kawasaki Heavy Industries’ long-term accumulation of shipbuilding field data and experience, robotics technology advantages, and AI technologies such as NVIDIA Omniverse, the open Isaac platform and the Cosmos World Foundation Model to build an integrated intelligent production system covering the entire process of merchant ship design and construction at the Sakade Factory in Sakagawa Prefecture, Japan, and promote the upgrade of traditional shipbuilding models to intelligent manufacturing.
As the core shipbuilding base of Kawasaki Heavy Industries, Sakade Works will become the pilot for this project. Based on the digital transformation of existing commercial ships, Kawasaki Heavy Industries will further use NVIDIA's Omniverse digital twin technology to build a complete digital shipyard in virtual space to realize digital simulation of the entire shipbuilding process, reduce the risk of rework, optimize the production process, and improve overall production efficiency.
At the same time, Kawasaki Heavy Industries will also deploy AI Agent (artificial intelligence agent) to introduce artificial intelligence into ship design, material procurement, production and manufacturing, quality management and other aspects to provide intelligent assistance for the entire shipbuilding process and further improve production efficiency.
In addition to the construction of smart shipyards, both parties will also focus on promoting the development of AI shipbuilding robots. In order to alleviate the problem of labor shortage, Kawasaki Heavy Industries is currently developing a four-legged AI welding robot that can move autonomously. The robot can go to designated operating areas on its own to perform welding operations on large hull components.
In the future, Kawasaki Heavy Industries will rely on the NVIDIA Isaac Sim platform to complete robot action planning, path generation, virtual simulation and on-site applicability verification, and accelerate the application of robots in core shipbuilding processes such as welding, spraying, inspection, and material handling. At the same time, by integrating the shipyard’s real production environment data, construction data and inspection data into the AI system, the robot construction conditions are continuously optimized and the quality inspection accuracy is continuously improved.
The two parties also plan to further establish a data platform covering the entire life cycle of the ship, extend the data collected during the ship construction stage to the maintenance, repair and modification of the ship after delivery, and provide integrated support for ship operation, maintenance and modification with the help of AI and digital twin technology.
TaiXing Expansion Marine Equipment Co., Ltd., has a factory area of more than 20,000 square meters, a workshop area of more than 6,000 square meters, and an area of more than 4,000 square meters of office and auxiliary facilities. The test bench designed and manufactured by the company can be used for 350T dynamic load tensile test and 800T static load. Tensile test, can complete customized marine machinery products, welcome to cooperate.
