Why did Malaysia’s top deep-sea robotics scientist Mohd Rizal Arshad move to China?

China leads the world in adding wind turbine capacity, is home to the busiest container ports and excels at deep-sea science.

For Malaysian robotics scientist, Professor Mohd Rizal Arshad, who relocated to China this year, the growing number of underwater structures and deep-sea explorations hold great potential for marine robot applications.

“The future is in the ocean,” the ocean robotics expert said. He envisions the sea as a future source of drinking water, food, minerals and power such as wave energy.

The marine engineer joined Xian Jiaotong-Liverpool University’s Entrepreneur College in Taicang in the eastern province of Jiangsu, as the dean of the school of robotics in February.

After completing his education in Britain, he researched control and robotic systems for 26 years in Malaysia, developing underwater submersibles, cable and non-cable underwater vehicles, floating robots and crawler robots for the seabed, among other intelligent marine robots.