Bitung, Indonesia, December 04, 2025: OceanX and Indonesia’s National Research and Innovation Agency (BRIN) have launched a major deep-ocean expedition to study the Sulawesi seamount chain—one of the least explored regions in the Indo-Pacific. The mission, running from December 2025 to January 2026, aims to uncover how geological forces, biodiversity and ocean ecosystem processes interact beneath the Pacific Ring of Fire.
Beginning in Bitung, the expedition includes public education activities and media engagement from December 3, 2025 to January 31, 2026. The new mission builds on the findings of the 2024 OceanX–BRIN collaboration, which identified five previously unknown seamounts north of Sulawesi. This year’s programme brings a larger scientific team, expanded research objectives and advanced tools to create Indonesia’s most comprehensive deep-sea dataset.
Vincent Pieribone, Co-CEO and Chief Scientist at OceanX, highlighted the scientific significance of the region. “Seamounts can shape currents, host rare species, and act as stepping-stones for life across the deep ocean. Very few of the hundreds in Indonesia's waters have been explored. Working with BRIN to study these systems will give us an entirely new perspective on how Indonesia's deep ocean supports its wider marine environment.”
The expedition features two research legs: the first examining geological and hydrothermal features through high-resolution mapping, visual surveys and tectonic analysis; the second focusing on biodiversity using ROVs, submersibles, environmental DNA sampling and oceanographic instruments. OceanX’s SeaSwipe AI platform will support rapid annotation of imagery to track species and habitats in near real time.
Arif Satria, Chairman of BRIN, emphasised the mission’s importance for national capability-building. “As an archipelagic nation and a center of global biodiversity, Indonesia must take the lead in marine science across the region. This joint expedition with OceanX not only enriches our scientific knowledge but also strengthens the nation's capacity to map, understand, and independently manage the deep sea. This is a crucial foundation for Indonesia's blue economy transformation.”
Capacity-building is central to the mission, with early-career researchers from BRIN and partner universities joining for hands-on training in mapping, sampling, genomics and data processing. The initiative aligns with Indonesia’s national research roadmap and supports Project Krisna, an effort to strengthen national marine research capacity through investment in research vessels funded by AFD France.
Supported by Bappenas, the expedition contributes to Indonesia’s blue economy goals by generating datasets that can inform marine spatial planning, hazard assessment and biodiversity baselines for northern Sulawesi. Findings are expected to strengthen ocean governance, improve evidence-based policy-making and expand ocean literacy across institutions and communities.
OceanX and BRIN stated that the mission—combining scientific exploration, technological innovation and capacity building—marks an important milestone for Indonesia’s deep-ocean research and long-term marine governance.
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