Published on Jan. 09, 2026

On January 1, 2026, the 366-meter-long container ship "MSC Saudi Arabia" slowly approached its designated berth at the container terminal at Qingdao port on the Yellow Sea, writes the Zhongguo Jiaotong Bao (in Chinese).

There were no dock workers waiting with mooring lines. Rather, a visual large model calculated all the necessary factors including wind, waves and currents near the berth.

AI agents then deployed vacuum suction pads that latched onto the hull of the container ship and secured it in place. The whole mooring process that usually takes between 20 and 30 minutes was completed in under 30 seconds.

The 13 automated mooring units of this system, when activated, can ‘generate a combined suction force of 2,600 kilonewtons’, Chinese media reported, enough to secure the world's largest container vessels.

Judging the right moment to pull in mooring lines is still, in most ports, a job for highly skilled dock workers. It is also a dangerous job, as the thick lines can snap under pressure and whip anybody in their path with deadly force.

Now the mooring lines are coiled and no longer needed. The dock workers have been retrained for other tasks. "In addition to speed, the system significantly enhances port safety by eliminating the need for personnel in the "snap-back zone" — a high-risk area where traditional mooring lines can break under tension", writes the China Daily.

This moment is only one step among many during the unloading of a container ship in the port of Qingdao, one of China's busiest, however. The artificial intelligence now assists with the whole operational chain. While the vessel is approaching, the availability of the most suitable berth is determined and assigned.

The large model juggles 132 different factors, from the prevailing tides and winds to the expected time needed for unloading and loading and the exact moment the vessel can be underway again.

A so-called berth-planning intelligent agent, built on a large model and trained with carefully curated datasets, augments the experience and skills of human dispatchers who no longer need to leave the control room.

In mooring, any sudden adjustment triggers chain reactions which can add up to significant losses of time. Automation does not completely change that. Currently, operators of the newly automated berthing system report a ‘berthing accuracy of 80 percent’. Crucially, however, the AI-assisted berthing system in Qingdao port keeps learning and getting better, raising the efficiency of the container port over time.

"Once a plan is generated, the agent seamlessly coordinates with terminal operations and intelligent collaboration systems, automatically issuing work orders and operational instructions. This enables end-to-end automation, including equipment positioning, self-checks, and process initiation", reports the local newspaper Qingdao Ribao (in Chinese).

Qingdao is one of the ten busiest container terminals in the world. Based on data from 2024, it was one of six Chinese ports among these top ten (next to Shanghai, Ningbo-Zhoushan, Shenzhen, Guangzhou and Tianjin).

Drawing on these ship and cargo movements, China’s National Development and Reform Commission (NDRC) has started to build the world's largest port operation data set, writes the official Xinhua News Agency.

Qingdao Port has taken on a pioneering role regarding the integration of AI into port operations. The automated mooring is just one of 26 initial "demonstration scenarios" that are currently being tested. Another one is a safety monitoring network with more than 500 on-site cameras in the port's Dagang area. It is generating real-time warnings based on "small models for rapid recognition plus a large model for comprehensive analysis". There are also projects for electronic geofencing for cargo stacks and intelligent office functions.

Chinese operators have already started to roll out AI-assisted port operation scenarios in other container terminals as well. At Container Terminal No. 2 at Tianjin Port, for example, driverless "artificial intelligence robots of transportation" (ART) are now handling almost all container movements.

Videos of one of the busiest terminals in the world show dozens of containers moving simultaneously on blue, autonomously driven vehicles, with no humans in sight.