In this environment, digitalization - particularly the convergence of Artificial Intelligence and the Internet of Things (AIoT) - has become a key enabler of operational excellence. AIoT technologies are already being successfully applied across a wide range of industries, smart cities, and everyday life, demonstrating their transformative potential in optimizing processes and enhancing efficiency. Given the many parallels between marinas and smart cities, solutions developed in the smart city domain can be effectively adapted to create Smart Marinas—modern, sustainable, and highly efficient operational environments.

However, there is a caveat. The development of smart city projects typically requires substantial, multi-year investments involving costly expertise across multiple disciplines and complex infrastructure. For most marinas, these financial and technical demands present significant barriers, making such initiatives difficult to justify or sustain within the constraints of standard operational budgets. Furthermore, many smart city technologies - while powerful - are either overly complex or not directly applicable to the specific needs of marina operations.

Motivated by these challenges and inspired by feedback from our industry colleagues, we set out to combine our deep expertise in marina operations and IoT technology to develop MARINA360.AI, a specialised AIoT platform purpose-built for marinas. Our mission is to deliver a fully integrated technology stack that directly addresses the unique operational, environmental, and regulatory challenges facing modern marinas.

The solution includes multiple seamlessly integrated components, including specialized sensors from premium manufacturers, custom-developed software modules designed specifically for marina use, an AI-powered control centre, all hosted on secure and reliable Oracle Cloud infrastructure.

Currently, we are focused on the following key areas:

• Minimising environmental impact and optimising energy and water use
• Supporting implementation of ISO 50001, the Energy Efficiency Directive (EED), and ESG guidelines (where applicable)
• Streamlining and automating legal compliance, including HACCP, Legionella prevention, and fire safety
• Reducing operational costs and improving staff productivity
• Enhancing business operations and elevating the customer experience

We envision the marinas of the future as active stakeholders in an interconnected smart grid, where energy is not merely consumed, but intelligently orchestrated. Powered by AI, the marina platform will develop a deep understanding of consumption patterns, learned over time from real data on energy usage, occupancy levels, and weather forecasts. These insights will enable the system to generate highly accurate predictions, forming the foundation for active participation in global energy markets and contributing to a more sustainable and resilient energy ecosystem. Marina customers will become engaged participants in this transformation as well, empowered with the ability to choose greener, more affordable energy options as part of a transparent and intelligent consumption model.

MARINA360.AI is being developed as a commercial, ready-to-deploy solution that aims to bring the benefits of digital transformation to marinas of all sizes—without the complexity typically associated with smart city initiatives and will be offered at an attractive, cost-effective price point.

The platform is already operational and currently in beta testing. It supports a range of sensors, including smart energy and water meters, people counters, and fire detectors. Upcoming modules are scheduled for release in the coming months.

If you are interested in learning more or participating in our beta program, please feel free to contact me directly at kresimir.zic@marinacloud.net