As tensions rise between Iran and Israel, one narrow stretch of water is once again holding the global economy hostage: the Strait of Hormuz.
Nearly a third of the world’s seaborne oil passes through the corridor each day. This week alone, Iran deployed sea mines in the channel - and GPS spoofing, which is the manipulation of satellite navigation signals, continues to disrupt ships moving through the region.
For Yarden Gross, co-founder and CEO of maritime technology company Orca AI, this is exactly the kind of moment his industry has feared. “90% of the goods today in the world, $5 trillion a year, is moving through the seas,” he said. “When you see the disruptions happening, it’s usually when you see major events.”
Those events are now arriving in quick succession. The corridor is narrow, congested, and the world is watching it get weaponised. These tensions are creating a distinct kind of disruption, sending oil prices climbing and forcing shipping companies to navigate increasingly dangerous waters.
This is where a company like Orca AI can help. It has built a platform that collects data from onboard cameras and sensors, analyzes it in real time, and shares it across a network of ships. The company now has over 100 million nautical miles of data, compounding as more vessels come online.
In a GPS-denied environment, the system operates independently of all standard navigation instruments, using thermal cameras and computer vision to detect objects — including small boats, and now, sea mines — that would otherwise be invisible at night.
When spoofing is detected on one ship, alerts are shared with others approaching the same area. “They can actually take preventive actions,” says Gross. “They can be aware that reaching an area or a specific location, they’re going to have GPS spoofing there.”
For decades, maritime technology lagged far behind other industries. The reason, he argued, was structural: without reliable internet connectivity at sea, updating software across a fleet required physically boarding each vessel with a hard drive. The arrival of low-orbit satellite internet in 2023 changed everything. “I saw like a massive change,” says Gross. “It’s so massive changing the perspective of the shipping companies, how they look at technology.”
The longer-term vision goes further than smarter ships with human crews. Gross anticipates a shift in how the industry thinks about high-risk corridors — from large, expensive vessels requiring protection, to smaller autonomous craft designed for agility and expendability. “Imagine if you had a small swarm of smaller vessels that can actually take fuel and gas out of there,” he said. “If one is going to get hit, fine. It’s going to be a very small quantity and it’s not going to be like a hit on a major tanker.”
The Strait of Hormuz is narrow, but its implications are vast. What is playing out there right now is not just a regional conflict story, or an energy markets story. It is a story about whether the technology underpinning global trade can keep pace with the forces trying to disrupt it.
