Construction and considerations of a marine industry instrument sharing service platform: A case study of the Marine Industry Instrument Sharing Service Platform of Shenzhen X-Lake Sciensity

With the continuous development of marine scientific research and the increasing contribution of the ocean economy to China’s GDP, the sharing of various marine instruments for surveys and applications has become one of the key approaches to addressing challenges in the marine sector. Compared with the traditional model of laboratory instrument sharing, marine instrument sharing presents unique application scenarios. This study focuses on the Marine Industry Instrument Sharing Service Platform of Shenzhen X-Lake Sciensity. In particular, the study systematically elaborates on the construction concepts, operational mechanisms, and practical pathways of the platform to explore a new model of marine industry instrument sharing.

The study first reviews the status of marine instrument sharing abroad and its development in China, followed by an in-depth analysis of the common challenges and issues faced by the marine industry. Focusing on Shenzhen’s marine sector, the study comprehensively investigates the resource base and demand for a marine instrument sharing platform, including Shenzhen’s ocean economy status, the layout of ocean-related disciplines, the inventory of marine instruments, and the demand from universities, research institutes, and marine-related enterprises. The findings show that Shenzhen is striving to build a “Global Ocean Center City,” with a booming ocean economy, a well-developed disciplinary layout in universities and research institutes, and an abundant stock of marine instruments. However, the overall utilization efficiency of these instruments remains low. Moreover, marine-related enterprises and research institutions have a strong demand for high-end marine instruments but are constrained by high purchase and maintenance costs, which hampers progress in marine research and industrial innovation.

Based on this analysis, a platform development plan is formulated, covering construction concepts, organizational structure, operational mechanisms, sharing mechanisms, and service models. The study proposes a novel sharing paradigm of “Instrument as a Service (IaaS), Technology as a Service (TaaS), and Platform as a Service (PaaS),” which breaks through the physical boundaries of traditional instrument sharing and achieves multidimensional sharing of instrument resources, technical capabilities, data, and professional expertise. Compared with conventional instrument sharing platforms, this platform further provides a comprehensive set of technical solutions, such as program design, deployment and recovery, and data processing, emphasizing service provision rather than mere instrument usage, thus effectively addressing the practical needs for marine instruments during industrial development.

In practice, challenges such as a lack of insurance mechanisms and insufficient intrinsic motivation for sharing still exist in marine instrument sharing. Through innovations in operational mechanisms and service paradigms, the Marine Industry Instrument Sharing Service Platform of Shenzhen X-Lake Sciensity has significantly improved resource allocation efficiency, reduced research and development costs for marine-related enterprises, promoted technological innovation in the marine industry, and provided substantive support for the high-quality development of Nanshan District’s marine sector while also offering a new public service pathway for Shenzhen’s endeavor to become a “Global Ocean Center City.”