From the “14th Five-Year Plan” to April 2026, the country has listed deep-sea mining vehicles as core equipment for strategic emerging industries.
The “15th Five-Year Plan” outline has listed the special project of “technical equipment for deep-sea resource development” for the first time; the 2025 Central Economic Work Conference proposed “developing the deep-sea economy and cultivating new growth poles”; the 2026 government work report emphasized “accelerating the engineering verification of high-end equipment such as deep-sea mining vehicles.”
The policy focuses on scientific research funding support, industrial transformation incentives, and participation in international rules, but there are still uncertainties in the coordination of environmental protection approvals and international regulations.
The deep-sea mining vehicle is an unmanned and intelligent heavy-duty operation equipment dedicated to the deep sea (water depth is usually greater than 1,000 meters) for the collection, preprocessing and environmental monitoring of solid mineral resources such as polymetallic nodules, cobalt-rich crusts, and hydrothermal sulfides.
It integrates traveling mechanism, collection device, slurry transportation interface, intelligent control system and environmental low disturbance module. It is the core seabed operation unit of the deep sea mining system.
There is currently no national mandatory standard definition, and the above functional description is generally used in the industry.
The industry has a rich history of development.
The budding exploration period (1970s-1990s) was dominated by drag-bucket mining vehicles, which had a simple structure but caused great ecological damage and had no commercial application.
During the technical verification period (2000-2010s), crawler mining vehicles became the mainstream, and many countries carried out lake trials and shallow sea trials.
China has accumulated deep-sea equipment experience through the manned deep submersible project, laying the foundation for subsequent research and development.
During the scientific research period (from the “13th Five-Year Plan” to the early stage of the “14th Five-Year Plan”, approximately 2016-2023), China, South Korea, Europe, etc. have invested intensively in prototype development.
Domestic teams including Shanghai Jiao Tong University’s “Kuo Kao No. 1” and Changsha Institute of Mining and Metallurgy completed the kilometer-level sea trial and initially verified the technical feasibility.
On the eve of project demonstration and commercialization (from 2024 to the present), China’s landmark achievements such as “Kaituo II” (4,000-meter class), “Zhishan No. 1” (100% localized), and “Smart Electric Drive Platform” have emerged.
Internationally, The Metals Company completed deepwater testing and was spun off and listed, with South Korea Zinc taking a stake.
The industry has shifted from single-machine verification to continuous operation and environmental compatibility verification, and only regulations and scale verification are needed before commercialization.
The industrial chain structure of the deep-sea mining vehicle industry is clear.
The upstream is deep-sea materials and core components, such as pressure-resistant materials, hydraulic systems/motors, sensors, umbilical cables, etc.; the midstream is system integration and final assembly, including prototypes from scientific research institutions, engineering products from central enterprises and listed companies; the downstream is mining area operations and new scenario services, covering exploration/mining contract area operators registered with the International Seabed Authority, sovereign mining companies, seabed data centers and carbon sequestration project owners.
Breakthroughs in upstream technology directly determine the operating depth, reliability and cost of mining vehicles. At present, high-end deep-sea motors and underwater high-precision sensors are still partially dependent on imports, and there is a large space for domestic substitution.
Downstream demand has not yet formed stable orders, but if the International Seabed Authority’s mining regulations are implemented in the later stages of the “15th Five-Year Plan”, procurement demand will be quickly released.
The new scenario can smooth out mining cycle fluctuations and provide the industry with a more sustainable source of demand.
In terms of technical level and characteristics, global deep-sea mining vehicles are at technology maturity levels 5 to 7, with China running alongside Europe and the United States.
China is partially ahead in the depth of prototype sea trials, localization rate, and all-electric drive innovation; international companies have more experience in continuous operating system integration and long-term reliability verification.
Its main technical features include that the walking system adopts four crawler independent drives and active suspension, and the climbing ability generally reaches more than 15°; the collection device presents a coexistence of hydraulic and mechanical cutting types, and the composite drilling head can switch modes; in terms of intelligent control, multi-modal sensing combined with autonomous path planning has been verified on the actual machine, and the AI large model is in the pre-research stage; in terms of environmental protection design, the plume suppression device, sediment isolation and backfill technology have moved from concept to prototype testing.
The global market structure is highly concentrated but has not yet been finalized. The Metals Company is leading the way in commercialization progress, Allseas has mastered the core equipment manufacturing capabilities, and Impossible Metals is using AUV-type selective collection technology to find a new way.
China’s pattern presents a dual-track feature of “diversified technology research and development and concentrated engineering transformation”. The source of technology is mainly universities and scientific research institutes, and the main end of industrialization is mainly central enterprises and listed companies.
There are many core factors driving the development of this industry.
The demand for resource security and new energy transformation has led to resources such as deep-sea polymetallic nodules being regarded as strategic succession areas; the improvement of technological maturity reduces implementation risks and attracts industrial capital and government investment; policy catalysis and international regulations are expected to provide a legal framework for commercial mining; the expansion of new scenarios smoothes the demand cycle and reduces the industry’s dependence on the mining cycle; the capital market attention increases, providing funding channels for R&D and demonstration projects.
Industry development trends include all-electric drive and in-situ mineral processing, modular and reconfigurable design, AI large models and digital twins, diversified scenarios, and low disturbance as entry barriers.
However, the industry also faces many barriers, such as technical barriers, financial barriers, policy and regulatory barriers, environmental and social barriers, industry chain supporting barriers, etc.
