An underwater robotics company is the latest ocean-based tech firm to take space in a repurposed stretch of seaside warehouses at the Port of Los Angeles as the nation's busiest container port seeks to dive headfirst into the so-called blue economy.
The blue economy refers to efforts around the country to incubate water-related businesses in ports and other seaside communities.
At the Port of Los Angeles, a company called Blue Robotics leased 49,000 square feet in a docklands research center known as AltaSea. The company plans to relocate its headquarters and production facility from inland Torrance, with renovations starting in early 2026 and an expected opening by year’s end.
Founded in 2014 by engineer Rustom Jehangir, Blue Robotics has grown from a garage project into a global supplier of low-cost thrusters, sensors and underwater drones used around the world, and the new space is meant to support expanded research and development, assembly and testing for its next generation of marine robots.
AltaSea, a nonprofit that leases 35 acres from the Port of Los Angeles, has spent the past decade transforming a cluster of 110-year-old warehouses on Pier 1 into a phased research campus for ocean science. AltaSea's 180,000-square-foot Center of Innovation is now about 85% leased, with additional land planned for build-out.
Economic development leaders say the Blue Robotics deal, one of the largest yet at AltaSea, underscores how Los Angeles is trying to turn its role as the busiest container port in the Western Hemisphere into a launchpad for jobs in sectors like marine robotics, wave energy and sustainable aquaculture rather than relying solely on cargo volumes that can swing with trade cycles.
“The ocean is our future. LA must lead,” said a statement from Stephen Cheung, president and CEO at the Los Angeles County Economic Development Corp., which reports that the ocean economy contributed more than $14 billion to the region's real gross domestic product in 2021, the most recent year available.
Blue economy expands at the port
The Port of Los Angeles is the busiest container gateway in the United States, moving more than 10 million 20-foot equivalent units in peak years and handling roughly 1 out of every 5 imported containers that enter the country.
Its scale makes it a backbone of national commerce, but it also leaves the port exposed to trade volatility, geopolitical shocks and shifting consumer demand that can swing cargo volumes sharply from year to year.
Port leaders say that is why they are investing in the blue economy as a complementary revenue stream, hoping to grow sectors like clean energy, marine tech and aquaculture that are less dependent on global shipping cycles.
City and county reports now cast the blue economy as one of Los Angeles’ next big growth sectors, citing everything from offshore renewable energy and port decarbonization to marine carbon removal and seaweed farming as emerging business lines that can layer on top of the port’s traditional trade role.
AltaSea’s campus sits inside that strategy as a kind of shared infrastructure platform where startups and established firms can lease flex R&D and light industrial space, tap into 2,000 linear feet of waterfront for testing and pilot projects, and draw on a growing pipeline of students from nearby colleges in a blue-economy workforce consortium.
The nonprofit traces its origins to early 2010s planning work at the Port of Los Angeles, when local leaders embraced the idea of a public-private ocean institute that could marry academic research, industry and community benefits and commissioned architecture firm Gensler to design a multiphase campus across four berths.
In 2024, AltaSea cut the ribbon on a $35 million first phase that modernized three historic warehouses and created a home for tenants ranging from UCLA, USC and CalTech university labs to the research center of ocean explorer Robert Ballard, who discovered the wreck of the Titanic.
“By recognizing the significance of the blue economy, we continue to harness our greatest assets: our ocean and untapped talent,” said a statement from Terry Tamminen, president and CEO of AltaSea. "Ocean-based industries have the potential to outperform the growth of the global economy as a whole, both in terms of value added and employment."
For Blue Robotics, the move represents a chance to grow from a Torrance industrial building into a waterfront headquarters that integrates office, R&D labs and production lines under one roof with direct saltwater access outside.
The firm is "absolutely stoked to bring our operations to AltaSea’s campus,” Jehangir said in a statement. “Having access to the ocean right outside our door to test our next generation of marine robotics systems will accelerate our development process and enhance our ability to innovate and push the boundaries of what’s possible in ocean exploration.”
From warehouse to waterfront lab
AltaSea owns and operates the campus as a nonprofit public-private institute while the Port of Los Angeles remains the underlying landlord, a structure that lets the organization tap government grants, philanthropy and private capital to finance phased construction on its long-term ground lease.
The property's master plan calls for repurposing clusters of century-old transit sheds into 450,000 square feet of labs, workshops and light industrial bays along a historic pier, with shorter-term tenants using modular container offices while longer-term occupants, like Blue Robotics, invest in customized build-outs.
Three of those warehouses, each roughly 60,000 square feet and built in 1914, now form the Center of Innovation, which offers high-bay space for equipment, classrooms and labs for visiting students, containerized offices for startups and a 4-acre rooftop solar array that can help power the campus and support emergency operations.
"A nearly 50,000-square-foot lease is significant anywhere and at any time. It is especially welcome news at AltaSea because it clearly demonstrates the strong future for ocean innovation and good jobs in the One-Five,” said LA City Councilmember Tim McOsker, who served as CEO of AltaSea before running for office and currently represents the city's 15th District.
Other U.S. ports are pursuing similar blue-economy playbooks, most notably the Port of San Diego with its Blue Economy Incubator, which has backed more than a dozen aquaculture and blue-tech pilots with funding, waterfront access and permitting support in an effort to diversify revenue and attract climate-tech entrepreneurs.
At AltaSea, one of the most visible examples of that strategy is Eco Wave Power’s new demonstration project, the nation’s first onshore wave-energy station, where rows of bright blue floats mounted to a breakwater convert the motion of harbor swells into clean electricity and signal the kind of technologies likely to share the pier with Blue Robotics in the years ahead.