The Vision for a Digital Twin of the Ocean

The ILIAD Digital Twin of the Ocean is a flagship European initiative, bringing together 56 partners from 18 countries to create a virtual, data-driven twin of the ocean. This ambitious project, funded by the EU’s Green Deal, aims to provide highly accurate, real-time predictions and simulations of ocean conditions, supporting sustainable management, policy, and innovation across the blue economy.

HUB Ocean’s Role: Enabling Interoperability and Data Fusion

HUB Ocean plays a central role in ILIAD, supporting the Digital Twin initiative through the Ocean Data Platform (ODP). The focus is on ensuring interoperability—connecting and coordinating existing projects, data, and models so that the various digital twins that make up the large ILIAD Digital Twin initiative can ingested, harmonized, and analyzed with their vast and diverse datasets. This includes integrating earth observation, industry, and citizen science data, and making it accessible for science, industry, and policy.

Technical Architecture: Building a System of Systems

ILIAD’s architecture is designed as a “system of systems,” harmonizing with other major European digital twin initiatives like EDITO-Infra and Destination Earth. The architecture features a Data Lake for analysis-ready, cloud-optimized data, a Digital Twin Engine for simulations, and a Service Platform for user-facing applications. HUB Ocean has contributed to the development of open standards, APIs, and scalable ingestion pipelines, ensuring that different digital twins are interoperable and future-proof.

Use Cases and Pilots: From Offshore Wind to Pollution Monitoring

ILIAD is not just a technical platform—it is a suite of real-world pilots addressing critical ocean challenges. Examples include Ballast Water Monitoring, Ship Routing & Harbour Safety, Jellyfish Swarm Forecast, Oil Spills and more.

These pilots demonstrate how digital twins can turn decades of investment in data and infrastructure into actionable insights for conservation, industry, and society.

Overcoming Barriers: Data Governance, Standards, and Engagement

A key challenge for ILIAD has been overcoming barriers to data sharing—technical, legal, and cultural. HUB Ocean has therefore been promoting responsible data governance, developing scalable ingestion tools, and advocating for open, FAIR (Findable, Accessible, Interoperable, Reusable) data standards. The project has also run webinars, hackathons on the Ocean Data Platform as well as training sessions to engage stakeholders and build capacity across disciplines and geographies.

Impact and Future Directions

The ILIAD Digital Twin of the Ocean is already delivering value by:

Enhancing conservation efforts through better understanding and forecasting of ocean conditions.
Improving efficiency and economic activities in the marine environment.
Enabling science-based decision-making and supporting legal and regulatory requirements.
Fostering greater citizen engagement through direct access to data and visualizations.

As the project matures, the focus is on scaling up pilots, expanding the user community, and ensuring that the digital twin ecosystem remains open, interoperable, and impactful for years to come.

All use cases