For most of human history, the oceans represented something greater than any power could not control. It was unfathomable and beyond the conquest – supported, not contained and governed by the forces of nature rather than by human ambitions. Even the empires at their summit of power respected the limits of oceanic domination. The naval force was visible, heavy and limited. The ships were slow, the submarines were fragile. The surveillance was at best uneven and the control of the oceans often temporary.
It started to change. We now live through a silent but unprecedented transformation of the ocean order. A convergence of deep technologies – artificial intelligence, quantum IT, autonomous vehicles and surveillance infrastructure, quickly divides the seas between those who can see, understand and operate in depths and those who cannot. The oceans of the world, long imagined as shared common goods, are at the risk of becoming more and more controlled in private, closed digitally and functionally invisible for most nations. It may not be a theoretical concern for the future. It is an emerging reality, which needs more attention than ever.
In the past, even the most technologically advanced powers could only operate at limited depths. Today, nations like the United States and China have deployed submersibles on the high seas in the Hadal zone – exceeding 6,000 meters. The Chinese research ship Fendouzhe reached almost 11,000 meters in the Mariana trench. These capacities are no longer just a question of exploration. They involve data collection, monitoring and mapping of seabed for commercial and strategic purposes. Developing countries, on the other hand, often do not have technology to explore even 500 meters below the surface with precision, leave alone 10,000 meters. Only very few countries can make submersibles in the deep sea which can reach a Hadal zone depth of more than 6000 meters such as the United States, China, Japan, Russia, the EU and France. Developing countries such as India provide submersibles that can reach depths of 6000 meters.
The contrast between navigating the depths of the ocean and the high visualization could not be more severe: anyone in the developing country can see Mount Everest with bare eyes, but none can see the trenches of the ocean in their own exclusive economic zone. For example, many states in the development of small islands (SIDS) can count on foreign ships to map their waters, even lacking in basic surveillance infrastructure. This dependence undermines their capacity to regulate the extraction of resources or to respond to incursions in real time. The world is quickly divided not only between rich and poor nations, but between those who can see and shape the oceans and those who cannot. Increasingly, it reflects a gap between technologically equipped equipped and technologically dependent.
The ditch does not end in depth. Artificial intelligence (AI) has already entered the underwater war. The AI allows real-time decision-making in autonomous underwater vehicles (AUV), the planning of the dynamic route to avoid detection and the swarm of coordination for naval drones, imitating natural formations like birds of birds, allowing several drones to work as a team for tasks such as survival, recognition and coordinated strikes. These are not just speculative developments; Prototypes already exist. The US Navy Orca submarine and Darpa sea hunter are autonomous platforms with combat capacities. China is developing naval swarms powered by AI for surveillance and control in the southern China Sea. The AI is already incorporated into sixth generation hunting programs and new generation surveillance systems. Starting, once the shape of a shell and the removal of noise, becomes algorithmic. Future platforms can adapt in real time to their environment, imitate biological signals or modify thermal and acoustic signatures to blend into their environment. In this context, conventional submarines – in particular those without advanced AI – can become ducks and seated liabilities.
Here is one of the most disturbing future risks: disinformation fueled by AI. It can be directed not only against humans, but also machines. Imagine a scenario where an opponent fuels the false depth or location data with a conventional submarine. The subtract, believing that he is sure, to cross his pressure threshold and his collapse. The world can argue if it was an accident or a systems error or an intentional data manipulation designed to leave no trace. It may not just be a fantasy. It is the logic of invisible technological superiority.
Surveillance on the high seas is another area where technological gaps can accentuate inequalities. Modern underwater surveillance systems, such as the “large underwater wall” or American acoustic networks of China, are beginning to transform the geography of the ocean into persistent data flow. Control is no longer a question of presence; This is perception. Those who can perceive the ocean in a global way can shape its use, restrict access and deactivate opponents, without a single blow to be dismissed. If it is possible to argue that surveillance is not the same as control, but that ignores centuries of history. Surveillance often precedes power. The Cold War was waged as much through satellites as by submarines. Today, the power to monitor an ocean in real time – on the movement of ships, cable vibrations and even the migration of biomass – is an asset of staggering strategic importance.
Further in the future, the advent of quantum and quantum internet could completely modify the balance of ocean governance. Quantum computers can perform certain complex exponentially faster than classic calculations, opening doors to problem solving that are currently beyond traditional IT capacities. For the sake of comparison, traditional binary computers are like basic calculators, ideal for managing simple arithmetic and logical operations, and quantum comparison comparison, are like advanced graphic calculators with functionalities to combat complex equations, route functions and manage multidimensional problems.
The two serve as calculation tools, but quantum computers venture into kingdoms inaccessible by conventional computers, similar to resolution problems that go beyond simple calculations. Quantum systems could decipher the strongest encryption today, make the communication protocols obsolete and allow a non-hackable transmission of commands between satellites and underwater platforms. Although these technologies still ripen, the gap between nations with quantum roadmaps and those without can widen quickly. Those who outside the loop will work blindly and will communicate in the open air, as are the postcards of yesteryear. But it can be years or decades.
In parallel, the extraction of the elder in depth and genetic bioprospection transforms biodiversity and geology of the ocean into new privatization arenas. The companies supported by the major powers are mapped and claim areas of rare earth deposits, polymetallic nodules and extreme genes – often before any global regulatory clarity. A recent study by Stockholm Resilience Center reports 3,258 patent deposits linked to more than 25,682 sequences of 1,092 marine species mainly by companies like BASF, IFF and Dupont. This raises concerns concerning fair access and ecological repercussions, as the nations most affected by the exploitation may not benefit economically.
In this current reality, the danger is not an open war – it is a silent exclusion. A world in which most states may not know what is happening under their waters. A world where unexplained accidents deactivate their fleets. When their cables are used, their resources extracted, their data collected – and nothing is told. It will not be an occupation. It will be a quiet exclusion.
Many can recognize that the inequalities of the ocean are real and growing – technically, economically and legally. Multilateral institutions must catch up. Current treaties like UNCLO belong to an era when such a technological disparity was unimaginable. New protocols are necessary of the time of transparency, access and deployment responsible for AI and Quantum systems in the sea field. Development countries must invest in collective research on the ocean, shared data infrastructure, Ocean global governance and an ethical framework and surveillance and submersible capacities in progress.
The oceans are not only spaces of military concern or commercial extraction. These are ecological lines of life, cultural identities and planetary stabilizers. If they are allowed to be sculpted by invisible walls of technology, we can see that the last major common goods of the earth have been lost – not for war, but to neglect. The irony is that we may not even know that it happened, buried in deep oceans, a silent disappearance of a shared inheritance beyond our opinion.
Non-liability clause
The opinions expressed above are the own author.
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