HD Hyundai, Hanwha Ocean to showcase next-gen gas tech in Bangkok

HD Hyundai and Hanwha Ocean are set to showcase next-generation gas-shipping and floating data center technologies at Gastech 2026 in Bangkok this week, as shipbuilders expand into cleaner shipping and artificial intelligence (AI)-driven energy infrastructure.

Gastech, which runs Monday through Thursday, is the world's largest gas and energy exhibition with more than 50,000 visitors and about 1,000 companies expected to attend this year.

Five HD Hyundai affiliates — HD Korea Shipbuilding & Offshore Engineering, HD Hyundai Heavy Industries, HD Hyundai Samho, HD Hyundai Marine Solution and HD Hyundai Electric — will participate, displaying models of next-generation liquefied natural gas (LNG) carriers, floating storage and regasification units and liquefied carbon dioxide carriers.

HD Hyundai Chairman Chung Ki-sun and HD Korea Shipbuilding & Offshore Engineering President Kim Hyung-kwan will join senior executives from sales, research and development, and engineering to highlight the group's green technologies and outline its vision for the future of shipbuilding and shipping.

The group is set to receive design appraisal from Lloyd's Register, a global classification society, for a next-generation LNG carrier featuring an accommodation block at the bow and multiple wind-assisted propulsion systems.

It will also receive approval-in-principle certifications for three technologies: a design that can replace the minimum pressure requirements for C-type liquefied-gas tanks, a 35,000-cubic-meter liquefied carbon dioxide carrier and a hybrid electric propulsion system for a 185,000-cubic-meter LNG carrier.

The company will also present an AI solution designed to optimize engine operations on LNG carriers, for which it will receive both approval-in-principle certification and product design assessment.

Meanwhile, Hanwha Ocean will unveil a model of its self-developed 60-megawatt floating data center to global customers for the first time, as it seeks to tap rising demand for AI infrastructure.

The company said the data center can generate its own power offshore and improve energy efficiency through seawater-based cooling, while its modular design allows its power generation and supply systems, server types and capacity to be tailored to customers and installation environments.

It has also received approval in principle from the American Bureau of Shipping for its 60- megawatt floating data center concept design.

Hanwha Ocean will also display a model of a 174,000-cubic-meter carbon-free LNG carrier powered by an ammonia gas turbine-based electric propulsion system. The vessel is being developed with a goal of using no pilot oil, including during ignition.

“Gastech 2026 is a meaningful stage where Hanwha Ocean will introduce the floating data center, which it has prepared as a new future business, to the global market for the first time,” said Shon Young-chang, head of Hanwha Ocean's Product and Strategy Technology Institute.

“We will present a new solution that complements the limitations of land-based data centers by combining our accumulated technologies in shipbuilding and offshore industries with Hanwha Group's energy and data capabilities, and lead the global FDC market.”