The China-France Symposium on Innovation and Cooperation in Ship CAE Industrial Software successfully concluded in Paris from January 25 to 28, 2026. Held at the headquarters of Bureau Veritas (BV) in France, the symposium brought together over 50 top experts, scholars, and industry leaders from both countries, including representatives from Harbin Engineering University, Bureau Veritas, China Ship Scientific Research Center, Centrale Nantes, Zhejiang University, Marine Design and Research Institute of China, Shanghai Jiao Tong University, and Wuhan University of Technology, to jointly advance the continuous development of cutting-edge ship CAE software technologies.

Hosted under the framework of the International Association for Innovation and Cooperation on Naval Architecture & Marine Engineering (ICNAME) and jointly organized by Bureau Veritas (BV) and Harbin Engineering University (HEU), the symposium aimed to promote technological innovation and cooperation in ship CAE industrial software. It featured 25 technical presentations covering the latest research achievements in ship hydrodynamic performance, structural performance, offshore engineering performance, intelligent ships, green propulsion, digital twin systems, 3D digital approval processes, and AI-driven ship design and performance prediction. The ”Marine Wave” Platform, an independently developed integrated ship CAE industrial software by China, made its appearance at the meeting and attracted significant attention from the French participants.

Digitalization, networking, intelligentization, greening, and unmanned operation represent the main future development directions for the shipbuilding industry, which will face numerous technical challenges along the way. Ship CAE industrial software serves as a key tool to support the solution and has received high attention and priority development. Through three days of academic exchanges and cooperation discussion, scholars from both China and France agreed that the development of ship CAE industrial software will encounter various technical challenges, such as accurate solution of ship performance in marine environments, fluid-structure interaction, and application of AI technologies. The two countries need to deepen technical cooperation, particularly in developing next-generation CAE industrial software to meet the evolving demands of the shipbuilding industry.

During the symposium, Professor Xia Guihua, as Chairman of ICNAME and Chief Technical Director of the Marine Wave Platform, signed a Memorandum of Understanding with Bureau Veritas on behalf of the Chinese ship CAE industrial software R&D team. The meeting established that Harbin Engineering University, Bureau Veritas, China Ship Scientific Research Center, and Zhejiang University will jointly initiate a Joint Industry Project (JIP) on ship mooring model tests in towing tanks to address safety concerns regarding ship mooring at wharves under typhoon conditions. Future cooperation between China and France will also extend to mathematical models for ship CAE industrial software, control equations and theoretical methods, numerical algorithm concepts and solution procedures, benchmark case definitions and result comparison validation, computational accuracy, error source and efficiency assessment, as well as ship digital modeling, model iteration, and intelligent applications.

According to the agreement reached by both parties, a workshop on ship industrial CAE software will be hosted alternately by China and France on an annual basis.