70 percent of the Earth is covered by the sea and 95 percent of its habitat is located in the volume between the sea floor and the water surface. Nevertheless, it is the most unknown part of the world and exploring it is often compared to venturing into outer space. But for a few years now, thanks to technological progress, this has been changing: diving robots are collecting more and more data, which are then fed into AI systems. Every dive brings new answers, but also questions, and to follow up on these, engineers and scientists have to work closely together to develop new devices from scratch. Michaela Vieser talks to experts who are exploring this place.

Listen to this 33 min feature here in the archive.