From shared risks to shared solutions: Reflections from AquaNext 2026
What can the aquaculture industry achieve when we move from managing individual risks to building a shared understanding of them?
That was one of the questions behind DNV’s discussions at AquaNext 2026 in Stavanger.
With fish welfare, technology and governance at the centre of this year’s event, AquaNext provided a valuable opportunity for the industry to discuss how aquaculture can continue to grow while addressing some of its most complex challenges.
For DNV, one theme stood out: many of the challenges facing aquaculture are shared – so could some of the solutions be shared too?
Biological risk does not stop at the farm gate
Disease, infection pressure and sea lice do not respect company boundaries.
Yet much of the data used to understand these risks remains fragmented across companies, systems and parts of the value chain. This can make it difficult to build a complete picture of what is happening, identify emerging risks and turn experience from one part of the industry into learning for others.
This creates an opportunity.
By improving how data is shared, standardised and used, the industry could develop a stronger common understanding of biological risk – supporting earlier intervention, better decision-making and ultimately improved fish health and welfare.
From data collection to better decisions
Digitalization has been a central topic in aquaculture for years. The question now is less about whether the industry has data, and more about how that data can create greater value.
At AquaNext, discussions around digitalization highlighted the gap that can exist between technological ambition and everyday operational value. The opportunity is to move beyond collecting more data and focus on connecting data with the decisions that matter.
For example:
- Can shared data help identify biological risks earlier?
- Can data from different parts of the value chain provide a more complete picture of risk?
- Can industry-wide insights support better fish welfare outcomes?
- Can trusted data reduce uncertainty and support more informed investment and regulatory decisions?
These are not only technology questions. They require collaboration between producers, technology providers, researchers, regulators and other stakeholders.
Exploring the potential of AquaCloud
Following DNV’s acquisition of AquaCloud, we are exploring how shared data infrastructure, data standards and data-driven models can contribute to this next stage of digitalization.
The ambition is to create another data platform and explore how trusted data can become an infrastructure for better industry-wide learning and decision-making.
AquaCloud has already worked with industry and research partners on areas including fish health, sea lice coordination, data standardization and secure sharing of production data. Under DNV, the technology and intellectual property are being developed as part of DNV’s wider cloud capabilities.
But technology alone will not determine the value of this opportunity.
The industry needs to help define where shared data can make the greatest difference.
Three questions for the industry
Our discussions at AquaNext reinforced three questions that we believe are worth exploring further.
1. Where can collaboration have the greatest impact?
Not every dataset needs to be shared, and not every challenge requires an industry-wide solution.
The priority should be identifying the areas where collaboration can generate value that individual companies cannot achieve alone – particularly where biological risks are interconnected.
2. How do we turn shared data into trusted insight?
Data sharing only creates value when participants can trust the data, the infrastructure and how their information is used.
This means considering data quality, standards, security, traceability and governance alongside the technology itself.
3. How do we translate insight into action?
Ultimately, better data is not the objective. Better decisions are.
The real measure of success will be whether shared insights can contribute to stronger fish health and welfare, more resilient operations, better resource use and more sustainable production.
From shared challenges to shared solutions
AquaNext's central theme – “Growth – together!” – captured an important reality for the industry. Aquaculture will need to continue growing while simultaneously addressing its biological, technological and regulatory challenges.
That will require collaboration.
For DNV, AquaCloud is an opportunity to contribute to that collaboration by helping create trusted infrastructure for sharing and using data – while working closely with the industry to understand where it can create the greatest value.
The conversation at AquaNext was an important starting point.
The next step is to turn that conversation into action.
What could we achieve if we moved from shared risks to shared solutions?
9/24/2026 8:03:00 AM