Why Canada is betting on oceans to close its innovation gap

Canada has the world's longest coastline, access to three oceans and one of the largest maritime territories on the planet. Yet, economically, the country's ocean economy remains small by global standards.

According to the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, the global ocean economy is already approaching USD $3 trillion, while Canada's contribution sits at roughly CAD $52 billion, around two per cent of national GDP.

Canada's Ocean Supercluster was created to address that imbalance by changing how industry invests in innovation. Launched in 2018 as part of the federal government's Innovation Superclusters Initiative (now the Global Innovation Cluster program), the organisation operates as a public-private partnership designed to de-risk commercial innovation rather than fund academic research. The organisation aims to raise the country's ocean economy to CAD $220 billion in GDP by 2035.

While driving new endeavours in the big blue sea, each opportunity is segmented into six sections: Scaled Ocean Energy, Sustainable Seafood, the Future of Ocean Transportation, Ocean Climate Solutions, the Artificial Intelligence (AI) Ocean Program, and Ecosystem Development.

In an interview with TechDay Canada, CEO Kendra MacDonald said Canada's long-standing past of underinvestment in technology was a key contributor to weak productivity growth, but by designating the ocean as a key innovation area, it has sparked growth from all three coasts.

"The program was designed to scale companies, but in the ocean [sector], because it was just so small, we couldn't scale companies if we didn't have enough companies, right? So we needed to really generate more top of funnel activity to be able to scale," she said.

Then came the Ocean Startup Project, funded in part by the supercluster, which serves as a feeder for new companies. The initiative now runs challenge programs, a lab-to-market pipeline and supports the Creative Destruction Lab ocean stream. Together, these efforts have helped more than 200 teams work towards forming ocean-focused startups.

The approach is beginning to show results. MacDonald points to companies that entered the ecosystem through student competitions or small prizes and have since progressed into global accelerators.

British Columbia's OnDeck AI started within the supercluster, which gave the team a $5,000 grant. They then moved on to last summer's Y Combinator batch. The company built a vision engine that can generalise across tasks without requiring any prior data training. OnDeck AI claims its technology is used by national defence organisations and offshore gas and oil monitoring sites, among others.

Unlike traditional grant programs, the Ocean Supercluster does not invest at the company level. Instead, it funds discrete industry-led projects, typically covering between one-third and one-half of total project costs. The remaining capital must come from industry partners, ensuring private-sector commitment from the outset.

Since its inception, it has committed more than CAD $200 million across a portfolio now valued at roughly CAD $500 million. The focus is not only on technology development but on accelerating commercial adoption.

Last month, the Ocean Supercluster announced nine new projects across Nova Scotia, Newfoundland and Labrador, and British Columbia, totalling $47.3 million in total investment. 

The largest, valued at $15.9 million, will provide a bioenergy carbon capture marine storage project led by Halifax-based CO2 innovators pHathom. 

"This project has the potential to position Canada as an early leader in the nascent marine carbon dioxide removal (mCDR) industry by demonstrating the commercial viability of capturing carbon dioxide from bioenergy plants," stated the supercluster, which contributed $5.8 million of the total investment.

A recent report from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology Review, in partnership with Canada's Ocean Supercluster, published that between 1992 and 2018, oceans likely absorbed 67 billion tons of carbon dioxide (nearly 50 per cent higher than previous estimates). The new figure, originally reported by University of Exeter professors Jamie Shutler and Andy Watson in 2020, used satellite imagery to shed new light on the Ocean's carbon dioxide stores.

"The ocean absorbs CO2 from the atmosphere because, as the atmospheric concentration increases, more is dissolved in the surface water. This water may then mix down, or sink as it is cooled, into the deep sea where the absorbed CO2 can stay locked up for hundreds of years as it slowly moves through the deep interior ocean and back to the atmosphere," the research stated. 

MacDonald said Canada has a huge opportunity to become a leader in this space, and this is why it is becoming a funding priority.

Other project investments announced in December include an enhanced simulator for marine personnel training, tools enabling rapid deployment of vision-based ocean AI applications for intelligent data capture, an electric lobster boat commercial project led by Membertou First Nation, and an AI-powered underwater acoustic monitoring system, among others.

Looking ahead to 2026, several themes are becoming increasingly prominent. Arctic security and sustainability are rising priorities, as the Arctic has the longest coastline of the three and is seeing temperatures rise three to four times faster than the global average. 

MacDonald previously travelled to the Arctic to meet with communities and ocean economy stakeholders. In a post on the Ocean Supercluster website, she said there must be ongoing dialogue with those who call the Arctic home.

"Looking at the opportunity in inshore fisheries for example – this is important both for food security and market opportunities and solutions must be co-led by communities. Solutions need to consider the broader challenges facing communities including food security, day care, housing, health care and education," she said in the post.

Additionally, artificial Intelligence is now deeply embedded across the portfolio, MacDonald said. Roughly 40 per cent of all funded projects involve AI. The supercluster's project support spans edge processing, real-time ocean sensing, autonomous platforms, and data analytics.

"The ocean is 70 per cent of the planet, so there's a lot of data still to come. You're seeing all the hardware, from satellites to drones, sensors, autonomous platforms - all of those are capturing data and then increasing insights and applications...we will continue to see AI and ocean."