The deep ocean is beginning to yield to instruments that do not need ships, daylight or even human crews.

Autonomous vehicles, artificial intelligence-enabled sensors and genetic tools such as environmental DNA are converging into what the 2026 GESDA Science Breakthrough Radar® describes as a decisive shift in ocean science: from intermittent expeditions toward persistent, high-resolution monitoring—and a governance challenge arriving just as quickly.

“Automated sensor arrays are enabling us to trace systems of currents and nutrient flows in unprecedented detail,” the Radar notes, while biodiversity discovery is accelerating, driven by technologies such as eDNA and metagenomics. Several of the tools driving this shift are being developed or refined in Switzerland, where advances in robotics, sensing and data science intersect with Geneva’s role as a hub for multilateral diplomacy.

The timing is critical for two reasons at once. Ocean ecosystems are changing rapidly under warming, pollution and overexploitation, threatening to erase scientific baselines. At the same time, the tools to observe the ocean continuously are finally scaling. Together, the Radar argues, those forces turn ocean science into an immediate policy question.

That urgency is sharpened by diplomacy. The Agreement on Marine Biodiversity of Areas Beyond National Jurisdiction, or BBNJ—the UN treaty governing biodiversity on the high seas—cleared the 60-ratification threshold in September 2025, triggering entry into force on Jan. 17, 2026.

The treaty applies to about 40% of the planet. The ocean, with an average depth of roughly 3,800 meters, performs a broad range of functions, including absorbing a quarter of anthropogenic carbon dioxide emissions and generating a large share of the planet’s oxygen through marine photosynthesis, said Sabine Gollner, a senior scientist at the Royal Netherlands Institute for Sea Research.

“So even if you never swim in the ocean, you’ve never been diving, you depend on the ocean. That’s why it’s so important to also embrace the ocean as a global common,” said Gollner, who spoke at the 2025 GESDA Summit. She noted that scientists have described 200,000 marine species, including 20,000 from the deep sea, though as many as 10 million species may exist in the ocean. “Which means we are only scratching the tip of the iceberg. About 90% of all life in the ocean we do not know yet.”

From mapping to stewardship

Ocean observation has long been constrained by cost and access. The Radar highlights a technological turning point: monitoring is scaling up as uncrewed platforms and networked sensors proliferate, and as analytics mature enough to interpret torrents of physical, chemical, imaging and genetic data.

But the Radar’s message is not simply to collect more information. It is that governance must anticipate what information enables: commercial prospecting for marine genetic resources, higher expectations for detecting illegal activity, and intensifying geopolitical competition over seabed access and “blue economy” opportunities.

In a GESDA briefing on ocean stewardship, the warning is blunt: “Companies rush to register patents for marine genetic resources of organisms that could have lucrative and beneficial uses for industry and biomedicine.”

More observation, however, does not automatically translate into better outcomes. The Radar repeatedly stresses a gap between detection and action: enforcement capacity, legal frameworks and institutional readiness often lag behind scientific capability, particularly in areas beyond national jurisdiction.

Switzerland’s test case: engineering the tools, preparing the rules

Switzerland appears in the Radar’s orbit in two ways: as an engineering hub for sensing, robotics and data science, and as a governance actor positioned near the center of emerging ocean diplomacy as the BBNJ treaty moves toward implementation.

On the policy side, Switzerland signed the BBNJ Agreement in early 2025 and is preparing documents for public consultation aimed at ratification and domestic implementation, according to federal maritime strategy monitoring reports.

On the technology side, Swiss labs and spin-offs are contributing to the “persistent ocean” toolkit. At ETH Zurich, researchers and spin-offs have developed compact autonomous underwater systems capable of operating in complex environments with minimal human oversight. While initially designed for inspection and mapping, the same capabilities—robust navigation, reliable sensing and secure data handling—are increasingly relevant for environmental monitoring and regulatory verification.

ETH Zurich researchers have also advanced eDNA-based biodiversity monitoring. Recent work cautions that measured genetic signals can be shaped by animal behavior, such as vertical migration, underscoring that large-scale genetic monitoring must be carefully designed if it is to support regulation as well as discovery.

Illustration by Francisco Chavez of the Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute (MBARI)

Data at scale — and the provenance problem

The coming bottleneck is not only sensing, but governance-grade data: metadata, traceability and access rules that can withstand scientific scrutiny and legal challenge.

Autonomous platforms generate heterogeneous, high-velocity streams—from temperature and chemistry to imagery and genomic sequences—raising questions about provenance, chain of custody and data access. The Radar highlights registries, interoperable metadata and tiered access as essential tools for transparency and accountability.

GESDA links these technical issues directly to equity. New knowledge can support conservation and sustainable economic use, but it can also amplify first-mover advantages if less-resourced states and communities lack access to tools, training or usable datasets.

Swiss freshwater research offers a preview of the scale challenge. At the École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne, a Lake Geneva campaign combined satellite calibration needs with measurements taken by volunteers. “We needed large amounts of data to improve our models, and never could have collected them without the help of volunteers,” said Natacha Pasche, head of EPFL’s Limnology Center.

The experiment mirrors challenges highlighted in the Radar: how to scale observations rapidly while preserving data quality, interoperability and trust—conditions that will be essential if ocean data are to support international regulation as well as science.

The new treaty meets the new machines

If BBNJ is to deliver on its promise, it will operate in an ocean that is becoming more transparent—technically—while remaining politically contested.

The treaty establishes a framework spanning environmental impact assessments, area-based management tools such as marine protected areas, and marine genetic resources, with benefit-sharing intended to serve all humanity and give special consideration to developing states.

That is precisely where the Radar’s governance emphasis lands. In its ocean stewardship briefing, GESDA frames the moment as a stewardship agenda resting on three pillars: knowledge, care and agency.

The “great blue leap,” then, is less a single invention than a collision of capabilities: autonomous platforms that can observe continuously; genetic tools that can identify life without capturing it; and legal frameworks that, for the first time, aim to govern biodiversity across the vast spaces beyond national jurisdiction.

Whether those parts align will depend on decisions being made now: who can collect data, who can use it, who benefits from discoveries, and whether enforcement and legal systems can keep pace in waters where enforcement has historically been weakest. For science-diplomacy centers such as Geneva, the challenge identified by the Radar is no longer theoretical.