Bearing and MOL team up to bring Artificial Intelligence to the maritime shipping industry
-GHG Reduction, Shipping meets Artificial Intelligence-

February 09, 2021

Mitsui O.S.K. Lines, Ltd. (President and CEO, Junichiro Ikeda, "MOL") and Bearing, Inc. (CEO, Dylan Keil, "Bearing") announced today an expansion of their partnership that began in 2019. The relationship was originally established with the goal of improving shipping efficiencies within the maritime industry. Through various trials and intensive discussions concerning ship modeling, a range of products including a newly announced AI-powered Smart Routing Engine, has been developed by combining MOL's maritime expertise and Bearing's artificial intelligence (AI) technology infrastructure. This routing engine automatically analyzes multiple potential routes for a given voyage and recommends prudent, efficient routing through use of optimal main engine output and propeller RPM profiles.

Bearing is a Silicon Valley-based AI technology startup that focuses on streamlining shipping operations. At the core of Bearing's technology are highly-accurate ship performance models built off of a diverse set of real-world data points. These AI-powered models with some historical voyage data for certain vessels such as vessel speed, trim, main engine operation, weather and sea condition allow Bearing to predict metrics like fuel consumption with state-of-the-art accuracy even without vessels' design parameters.

Bearing's desire to partner with MOL arose from MOL's reputation as a technology leader in the shipping industry that understands the transformative potential of AI. MOL appreciates Bearing's profound AI expertise and background in building scalable AI technology products. These mutual recognitions lead to an agreement for the expansion of the existing partnership.

The global shipping industry has been challenged to further enhance energy efficiency and develop measures to reduce greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions from ships in a manner that will phase them out in this century. The MOL Group is one of the world's leading multi-modal transport entities that is committed to achieving sustainable "Net Zero GHG Emissions" through collective efforts by 2030.
MOL, at its highest organizational levels, continuously monitors the condition of our fleet to ensure optimum operational efficiency and prudent safe navigation by combining the technologies of Bearing as well as other existing and new solutions. MOL accepts its social obligation to take innovative steps to help solve environmental issues such as greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, air pollution and biodiversity impediments.

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About Bearing, Inc.

Bearing, Inc. is based in Palo Alto, California, and backed by the AI Fund (founded by Andrew Ng, co-founder of Google Brain) and Mitsui & Co., Ltd. Bearing's team is made up of engineers and product people with extensive experience in building large-scale data-driven products.

About Mitsui O.S.K. Lines, Ltd.

Mitsui O.S.K. Lines, Ltd. is a Japanese marine transportation company headquartered in Tokyo, Japan. It is one of the largest shipping companies in the world. MOL fleet includes, dry cargo ships, tankers, liquefied natural gas carrier, offshore business fleet, Ro-Ro Car Carrier ships and also diversifies its business to maritime related industries. As of 2021, about 800 ships are in operation.