Qingdao Daily, March 19 News – Recently, the Wenhai 6000h deep-sea heavy-duty remotely operated vehicle (ROV), independently developed by Laoshan Laboratory, has completed a voyage survey mission at the Kunlun Hydrothermal Vent Cluster Area, the world’s largest deep-sea hydrogen-bearing hydrothermal area. It carried out deep-sea scientific research operations including submarine hydrogen energy exploration and regional submarine geological surveys.
The Wenhai 6000h completed a total of 16 dives with a 100% effective dive success rate, reaching a maximum seabed landing depth of 6,523 meters. It has broken the operational depth record of existing 6,000-meter-class deep-sea ROVs at home and abroad, becoming China’s first domestically produced deep-sea heavy-duty ROV put into regular scientific applications in the ultra-6,000-meter deep ocean.
The development of the Wenhai 6000h started in May 2025. With a designed power output of over 150 horsepower, it has an underwater working load capacity of more than 500 kilograms and a deep-sea salvage capacity exceeding 2 tons. The vehicle finished system design and development within 4 months, and completed 1,000-meter sea trials in October the same year, achieving the goal of project initiation, development completion and application launch all within one year.
Centering on the scientific objectives of the development mechanism of the Kunlun Hydrothermal Vent Cluster and exploration of submarine hydrogen energy potential, this voyage took the Wenhai 6000h as the core operational equipment. During submarine operations, the Wenhai 6000h, equipped with multiple sets of heavy scientific research equipment, successfully completed a series of long-duration, high-precision in-situ submarine detection tasks. It fully verified the engineering practical performance and system reliability of the equipment. Domestically manufactured large heavy-duty operational tools including a 7,000-meter-class manipulator and submarine drill performed excellently, marking that China’s 6,000-meter heavy-duty ROV equipment technology has entered a new stage of practical application capability development.
The Wenhai 6000h will play a key role in scientific and engineering application fields such as exploration of extreme deep-sea environments and strategic resources, submarine construction of heavy deep-sea equipment, and deep-sea rescue and salvage. It provides solid equipment support and technical guarantee for China to conduct deep-sea resource exploration, cutting-edge scientific research, and participate in international deep-sea governance.
